Dragonwatch by Brandon Mull

My Review

Writing a novel is like climbing a mountain that does not yet exist, reaching for handholds that become tangible only as you curl your fingers around them, yearning for a tower- ing summit that must be willed into reality before you can stand on it.

Brandon Mull, author of Fablehaven and Dragonwatch

So, I finally got around to reading the final Dragonwatch book. And honestly, I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. Especially after how subpar books three and four felt at times while reading.

Though not as good as Fablehaven – and I’ll talk about why that is in a bit – Dragonwatch is a very solid middle grade fantasy series. And just a solid fantasy in general, if we’re being honest here. It was a wonderful, yet completely unexpected continuation of a series that I thought was over. Many writers return to their biggest successes years later, or never stop to begin with and just keep milking the cow, and so often it overstays its welcome or sours the earlier installments. But Dragonwatch didn’t do that – it continues a story from beyond its original ending in a way that feels very natural. (Not to mention the lack of sequel bait at the end of The Keys to the Demon Prison was wonderful, even if finally reaching the end of Fablehaven book five felt bittersweet.)

As this is a sequel series – and is considered to be the second half of a story by the author himself – it would be impossible to discuss Dragonwatch without talking about Fablehaven. At least a little bit. (Don’t worry – I’m not gonna get too much into it.)

Creating an entire series is an even grander and more daunting expedition. Writing the Fablehaven and Dragonwatch series has been quite a climb. I spent ten years of my life producing these books, and now I’m finally done. I believe these were mountains worth climbing, and I am happy to leave them as part of the landscape so others can explore them.

Brandon Mull

But anyway. Fablehaven. It’s a series from the ’00s that I feel got a little bit lost in the shuffle ’cause of certain other big fantasy books at the time that were targeted towards YA and middle grade. But I really enjoyed it when I first discovered it around 2008. I thought that the individual plots of each book were each engaging and stood on their own very well. I adored the characters, particularly Seth and Kendra, and loved their character growth. And I loved the dialogue and the writing and the execution of Mull’s ideas. Not to mention the pacing of each novel was incredible, I don’t think I was ever bored or felt like any of the books suffered from Middle Book Syndrome.

And this is why I feel that though it’s a great series, Dragonwatch doesn’t quite hit the same for me as Fablehaven did. And yeah, I’m sure that nostalgia is definitely at least a little involved here, but I just don’t think that Dragonwatch is quite as good. For one: books three and four – Master of the Phantom Isle and Champion of the Titan Games – definitely feel a little bit middle book syndrome-y. There’s just something about the pacing of them for me, I dunno.

Second of all: Seth is incredibly annoying in these same two books, and I hated following his chapters at times (sometimes I just DESPISE amnesia plots if they’re done certain ways). It felt like I was following a different character at times, which kind of irritated me during a few parts. Like, I get it I know how an amnesia plot works, but at the same time it was a bit frustrating.

And last of all: there were just so many more new characters introduced and other miscellaneous stuff that felt a bit unnecessary and usually disappeared after a while. I also wasn’t too keen on Kendra’s and Seth’s younger cousins for much of the series either. They were introduced in the first Dragonwatch book, yet they felt unnecessary for much of the story of the series. Sure, they fulfilled their character arcs at the end of the books, but they just annoyed me for whatever reason.

I’m sure that you can tell by now that I felt that the third and fourth books were the weakest of the series. And you’d be correct – I definitely think that. But I also felt that it had a strong start as well as a strong finish. And my grievances with the series are honestly very few; as I’ve said – this is an absolutely solid fantasy series.

I didn’t want to write Dragonwatch unless it would build upon what Fablehaven started in a way that felt important. Now that I’m done, I feel like Dragonwatch is the second half of a single sweeping story, and that without these five books, the adventures of Kendra and Seth would be incomplete.

Brandon Mull

Let me just make a little list of some of my favorite things about Dragonwatch (Note – The Return of the Dragon Slayers was the most recent book I’ve read – it’s been well over a year since I read any of the others – so my points will basically be about this book in particular or the series as a whole):

• The way the entire series – Fablehaven and Dragonwatch – came full circle in a few different ways.
  • Muriel, the witch antagonist from the first Fablehaven book, appears and has a significant part to play in book five of Dragonwatch.
  • Kendra and Seth have a moment in the room they originally stayed in during Fablehaven.
  • Themes from the first series return and circle back in a satisfying way.
  • Kendra and Bracken have another touching moment at the end of the Dragonwatch series that builds on the moment they had five books earlier at the end of the Fablehaven half of the series. I adored it.
• I loved seeing many of the characters return from the Fablehaven part of the series. So many books come back years later and ditch much of the original cast, but this one doesn’t do that, which I appreciated.
• Seeing new magical places was awesome. Moving beyond the magical preserves was awesome. I just love the Fablehaven world building and universe in general.
• Brandon Mull managed not only to stick a series ending with Fablehaven not once but twice. So many series struggle with this aspect of writing, but neither half of the series does. Both Fablehaven’s and Dragonwatch’s endings are satisfying and feel earned.

So yeah, I liked a lot of stuff about the Dragonwatch series. But this review is already getting super long so I can’t talk about everything I enjoyed. I definitely recommend this series to anyone who enjoys middle grade fantasy, and especially kids in middle school. As someone who read half of this series in middle school when it was still just Fablehaven, I think that kids this age will find it to be a great series and will enjoy it.

Because of this, my median star rating for the entire Dragonwatch part of the series is:

Anyways, as always, thank you to everyone so much for reading, and I hope you all have a fantastic day/night!

Also, if you celebrate it, 🇺🇸🎇 Happy 4th of July!! 🇺🇸🎇

See ya ~Mar

I have many other books and series to write. Some of my fa- vorite ideas have yet to be written. I can’t wait to share them in the years to come.

Brandon Mull

My Star Ratings for Each Book

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MY LINKS:

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