The Dragonbone Chair

I thought that this book was good for what it is, but as a woman I often feel it is hard to relate to the main character Simon, I feel that the book is better suited for my 14 year old boy cousin. Also I found that there was a little too much dialog between the characters, I felt it became too wordy and the author repeated the same thing often. The focus was taken away from the action a little. The story-line itself is your basic unlikely young hero fight ing for good against evil, and taking on the responsibility of a very dangerous mission. The book is based around Simon, a teenage boy with red hair who has lived as a servant in the castle all his life. The king ends up dying sparking the return of his two sons. The one son takes over but ends up being corrupted by a magical priest and locks his brother in a dungeon. Simon rescues him from the dungeon and thats when his adventures start to take place. Along the way, he witnesses dark events, and then joins a quest to find a talisman that may give some remaining hope to the kingdom. I felt like the pacing of this book was so slow I did not even want to read it anymore at some points. As I continued I warmed up to the other characters, because there was a lot of them. As I got a little more involved with the story, it got better.