A review by bushbabybookworm
House of Dragons by Jessica Cluess

5.0

It took me under 5 hours to read this.

Six of Crows meets Hunger Games, meets Red Queen but make it dragons.

There are 5 main characters: The Liar, The Soldier, The Servant, The Thief & The Murderer.

Of those 5, 3 are women:
The Liar - a weak, sheltered girl finds strength & power.
The Servant - also a weak, overlooked girl who finds power & strength. This one is a lesbian. In a relationship “above her station”. Aside from the Nobility vs Servant angle the relationship is never described as “wrong”, “different”, “a phase”.
The Murderer - the most powerful and intense character. Also asexual. Never deemed “less”, “wrong” or “weird”.

The 2 men:
The Soldier - raised in a deeply/toxic masculine way, all he wants is to become a peaceful monk and tend gardens. He wishes his sister gets picked instead of him. He vows to never again take up arms against another living thing. Vegetarian.
The Thief - a product of rape, bastard born. Raised in an extremely toxic masculine way. He is a straight up simp. He is a horndog but he explicitly states multiple times that he would never force himself on anyone. He says if a woman says “no” he respects it.

Take those characters, make them flawed & REAL: add the plot of them all fighting to be the next emperor; add DRAGONS; add a slow-burn friends to lovers; add found family; add betrayal.
What you get in the end, is this masterpiece.

This is one of my top reads of the year, if not one of my top reads EVER. I knew this book would be good (I mean, have you looked at the cover? It oozes awesomeness) but I did not anticipate it being this amazing. 10/10. This book needs to be talked about as much, if not more, than Six of Crows, ACOTAR and Twilight.

Sequel coming May 2021.