Dragonhaven Book

Wow. You never know what you are going to get with Robin McKinley. Sometimes her writing is absolutely brilliant, pulling you into a fantasy world that you wouldn't mind exchanging for your own. Her main characters, usually female, are fully realized characters who you quickly admire and care about. I admit that I have not liked all of her previous work, but I was surpised by how much I disliked this book. It is set in the present (or at least a present populated by mythical creatures) and told from the point of view of a teenage boy named Jake. I quickly tired of Jake's first person ramblings. I guess McKinley was trying to make this book seem like it was really written by a teenager and she unfortunately succeeded. I had flashbacks to reading Eragon.
One of the most frustrating parts about reading this book was that I would put it down one night and when I picked it up the next night it would take me several minutes to find my place. I am not a bookmark user, I can usually find my spot in a book because I can tell whether or not I have reached a particular point in the narrative. If I haven't read a scene I go back a few pages, if I have I go forward. It usually works. Not for this book. Jake's ramblings were so repetitive and the narrative progression so halting that I sometimes couldn't tell what pages I had already read without reading several paragraphs. I would think I had found my spot only to realize that Jake was just saying the same sort of things about how hard it is to raise a dragon every few pages and I was in the wrong spot. There is no way I can recommend this book to anyone.