This book looked promising, really. The whole idea of shape-shifting were-dragons was, I admit, quite tantalizing to me. Alas, poor execution drove it into the ground.Two of the biggest problems with this book is that the plot often seems to lack direction, and is very repetitive. I mean our main characters (without giving too much away for anybody who hasn't read it) simply spend most of their time doing nothing other than running away from their enemies in an aimless manner. There's no goal or point to their actions and no real meaning to many of their decisions. The book has moments where it almost felt as though the author had lost his heading for a bit.The characters are... I'm not quite sure how to describe them really. The main character is an idiot boy without a thimble-full of sense between his ears, one of the other mains (again trying to withhold spoilers) is a sour, old idiot who acts in such a manner simply for the sake of it. Another one of the supporting lead characters who is female (she comes in a little later) does nothing more than weep in almost EVERY SINGLE CHAPTER for some reason or other. The villain is too unrealistic, always telling the reader about the history of what's passed by having cruel flashbacks that are told in a very unrealistic way. And by unrealistic I mean the way in which the author makes his characters talk to themselves in their minds is not how people (ancient or otherwise) talk to themselves. It sounds something like this:As she flew over lakes and mountains, she couldn't shake the memories that haunted her: "He raped me all those years ago," she thought. "He forced me in the halls of the dragons... in the Halls of Requiem. I will have my vengeance upon him. I will have my vengeance on Mo'Kahl! He will feel my claws. He will learn to fear my teeth. I am a Vir-Requis, a noble beast of old. He will feel my fury. He will pay."And this is how they ALL talk to themselves, heroes and villains alike. But hey, I could just be being stingy as far as that goes.This, coupled with the times when the characters (good or evil) made some foolish decision for no other reason than to prolong the book or to try and make something that made no sense make sense, forced me to rate this book in such a manner. I actually would give it one and a half stars (for the sake of the overall idea of shape-shifting human-dragons) but Goodreads won't let me. Hmph. Welp, I have to say this book got a mixed reaction of sorts out of me. On one hand, the characters did not feel as developed as they could've been, and they dabbled in their memories far too much for my liking. I will concede that at times, the author had a very vivid command of language that brought the fantasy world of Requiem to life and the moments of vividness outweighed the cons in this book for me. I look forward to more from this author. :)
