Dragon Ever After

I honestly laughed a lot reading this. At least one reviewer said it wasn’t funny. I don’t have other books by this author to compare it to so to me as a first-time for this author reader, I thought it was hilarious. That being said, this book still had enough issues for me to be able to quit halfway through. The humour was enough to keep me reading but as the plot progressed it sunk deeper and deeper into romance tropes that I just couldn’t be bothered with.

The dynamic between Brandt and Percy was fun. That is where most of the original laughs came from in the first third. Based on the blurb, however, I was expecting more tension and indecision, but they are openly flirting over dinner with witnesses. It was okay, but the blurb definitely alluded to Brandt being unhinged but he is definitely anything but a hothead so this is a misrepresentation of his character. And that Percy would have to decide what he wanted from him. But their connection is way too clean, obvious and fun to leave even the slightest room for misinterpretation. They work together so other than the author forcing Percy to find ways to avoid the situation there are no clear signs that apprehension is needed. Brandt is very clear that he wants Percy.

Any monologues or discussions about Brandt maybe not wanting him fall flat. Brandt clearly states there’s no way he’s letting him get away. Their entire flirtatious banter, which Percy is involved in otherwise it wouldn’t work, is all about getting Percy to change his plans and come visit Brandt. Making Percy indecisive just doesn’t work on any level with such a clean and direct approach to Brandt’s attraction. It’s this very reason I quit the book but let’s move on to something else for now.

The young dragon that crashed into Percy’s shed is described as 13 years of age. I can go back as far as Family matters before the kids were high school age when Steve’s biggest joke was his massive crush on Laura. That was thirty years ago. I mentioned Henry Danger on my vlog where piper who isn’t even a teen yet has a huge crush on Kid danger. I could keep this up for pages and pages. The point is that a dragon who has been living on earth for three years, with cable, satellite, and streaming sites like Netflix and Hulu and so on, probably has a high school crush himself. There is no way he doesn’t recognise or understand flirting, innuendo, and double-entendres. I probably shouldn’t even say this but teen pregnancy is a thing, and it was a thing back when I was a teen. We recognised clever banter for what it was. A kid at this age, with the stimuli he would’ve had both on the dragon world, and probably in more abundance on earth, would not be that clueless. Especially when he himself is going through puberty stage.

The odd maturity expectations didn’t stop there. When Percy calls an old Colleague about something, this colleague’s boyfriend acts like a schoolgirl. He wants to talk about the relationship. Wants to be all into how things are going to go with Brandt. He also wants to call up his two Bros so he can tell them and force this relationship to happen. Then when he’s told not to call them, as the story goes he does tell them anyway, no shock there, he pouts like some little puppy or young child. Even whines like ‘why can’t I tell them’. It’s supposed to be funny but thousand-year-old elvish males acting like 14-year-old high schoolers is just not funny. And, most importantly, Percy didn’t even call him. He called another guy. Why is he all up in this conversation and trying to take it over for a matchmaking scheme and Gossip?

Yet there’s more. Percy decided after being Lucifer, not Satan it’s just a title over the Community of Species Government, that he needed a break from dealing with all the drama. He did not want a big get-together, so being the best friends his friends’ are they plan a surprise party. A party they know he wouldn’t want but do anyway because they know what’s best for him. And, instead of being upset, annoyed, and standing his ground, Percy starts internal monologuing about how excited he is to see them all and ends that thought with how that feeling won’t last. Readers will never know because almost immediately he’s zooming off to see Brandt.

If they knew him well enough, they knew why he retired. As friends, they should’ve let him catch up with everyone on his own terms. But, most importantly, how important are these people cause it was a few and I can’t even remember them all because after this we are at the Dragon Keep. If they aren’t solid main characters a big meet and greet almost feels like maybe they are characters from another book (I know they probably are. It’s a spin-off series but I could be wrong🤷‍♂️) and the author just had to give them page time just because they could.

There’s supposed to be a joke about Percy putting on silk panties for his meet with Brandt which isn’t really that funny because Percy only wants just sex, so he says. And he has no idea if Brandt is even into underwear. Him being embarrassed by this choice and then rushing to take them off when he gets pants from Brandt, I cannot remember how his own pants got messed up, wasn’t really funny. He could’ve just worn regular underwear. Also while he’s amping himself up for sex he says naked dragon ride, and a security guard hears him. Brandt’s grandson, bolts into the study later on and says is it true you and Percy are going for a naked dragon ride, or something to that effect, and they literally start talking about sex like they are best buds. It was awkward as fucks.

Not just that he was his grandson but how ridiculously invested in this Naked Dragon Ride all the dragons were. The very notion that beings all over 1000 years old would behave this way is nuts. Standing in the hall eves dropping like this is an episode out of some made-for-teen-series🙄.

No judgement here on normalising sex because I do in all my books. However, the behaviour here read like if you took the flighty personality type of a ‘Clueless’ character and then stuck adultier non-clueless ideas into an over-eager teen who wants to be part of the gang type personality. For beings and creatures as lived as them, they should’ve been equally as invested in his sex life but on a much, much, much adultier wavelength. It really felt like if puppies could talk this is how they would behave. Again, it was extremely awkward.

Then, the reason I quit, after all this hardcore evidence of attraction why is Percy continuously lamenting over having casual sex and not wanting a relationship? Who cares. Brandt wants him. If Percy wants just sex say it. If that leads to no sex, whatever, they are adults and the dragons are definitely sexually free. Someone will be down to do this with him. If they have sex first and after Brandt is like nah I want more, well he got some good orgasms. Life moves on. Lastly, he might just say yes and not care. Maybe he thinks he can change Percy’s mind or, as is clearly evident on-page, he can see right through that and can tell after thousands of years alive Percy does want more. No matter how you slice it, it boils down to why is he stressing over this? Hiding in the bathroom because of it? Having a weird emotional conversation with Trent about it? It was such a big thing every time it came up I groaned a bit. When Percy, finally comes out with this nonissue of a situation, Brandt basically gives a ‘huh?’ type of response.

He has been sending out all the sexual signals. They are obvious. This topic hasn’t come up and doesn’t need to. Percy decided his ass was horny and spontaneously drove out there, and Brandt is willing. Just relieve the tension and then have the serious conversation. It was out of place, dragged out for too long and didn’t need to be an issue at all.

I can see why some readers may not have found it as funny as I did. Outside all the above things that I have written, I did a lot of laughing. The problem is these things are designed to be funny and they were not the things that made me laugh. How is a guard going to overhear Brandt saying something and tell the entire population at the castle so much so Brandt is having to have this conversation about it like it’s normal with everyone, including his grandson. There’s even a joke about a paranoid, conspiracy theorist head of security. Yeah no. It was more frustrating instead of funny. And all the characters outside of Brandt and Percy behave this way. It’s almost as if the author took the thirteen-year-old boy acting like he’s seven in the beginning and plopped that same mentality into all the much, much, and did I say much older adults; dumbing down their mannerisms to be funny. It just didn’t work.

If they were going for supernatural beings being corrupted by humans being funny, bringing down their maturity levels to do that took away from the infiltration of human culture into their lives.

As far as humour goes this book was my brand, beyond the forced stuff. Hilarious. But as far as character choices, plot choices, and the overall direction the book was going. I started off enjoying it but the problems outweighed that and piled on so fast that around 45 percent or so, I just quit. Maybe other people will love it, but it didn’t feel like it was going anywhere for me so my high started to dwindle real fast as I got further in. All the characters were too flighty and even a bit ditsy for me to get into them. And a lot of Percy and Brandt’s reactions and dialogue were based on how they responded to these characters so their connection to each other didn’t get a chance to build. Their only real page time together is when they met in that first or second chapter, a lot of stuff happens in the middle and their next meet is with loads of dragons around and they then fuck each other, so even they aren’t delved into to deeply.

This story tried to be over-the-top funny, and create sexual indecision when there wasn’t any need for it and made too many missteps in just the first half for me to get emotionally involved. Funny, yes, but I guess I’ll have to admit that no matter how much the parts I did laugh at were mind-blowing hilarious, the other half of the funny wasn’t. Also I’m not the only one who felt the maturity levels of this book didn’t fit and it reads like a book about teens staring the ‘popular kids’ with a somewhat airhead quality. This story really gave off trying too hard energy to me, and didn’t connect.