Book Review: Flying Blind by Deborah Cooke

Title: Flying Blind

Author: Deborah Cooke

Series: The Dragon Diaries #1

Release Date: June 7th, 2011

Publisher: New American Library

Age: Young Adult

The next generation of shape-shifting dragons from the popular author of the Dragonfire novels.

Zoë Sorensson is perfectly normal, except she's been told she's destined for great things. Zoë's the one female dragon shapeshifter of her kind. But Zoë is at the bottom of the class when it comes to being Pyr and her powers are AWOL, so she's sent to a Pyr boot camp.

Zoë quickly realizes that she has to master her powers yesterday, because the Pyr are in danger and boot camp is a trap. The Mages want to eliminate all shifters and the Pyr are next in line-unless Zoë and her friends can work together and save their own kind.

You probably know I love dragons, so when I discovered this book I thought it was perfect for me.

It's the first time I read a book from this author, and I understand she has already written books about the previous generation of these characters. But you don't need to read the previous series to read this one.

Flying Blind is about Zoe, the only female shape shifter dragon. She has a responsibility greater that everyone else. She's supposed to have special powers that will help the Pyr, but she can't even shift into a dragon!

Zoe is young and very immature. She feels like a failure because her powers are missing, but when she accidentally shifts in front of another girl while fighting, instead of being punished by her parents, she's sent to boot camp. It's the best thing it could happen to her, because not only she'll see Nick, the boy she's crazy for, but also her friends.

The plot of Flying Blind was interesting. Zoe is positive her powers are going to appear as soon as she starts boot camp, and she's pretty sure Nick will fall in love with her. Obviously things doesn't happen that way, and when she and her friends are trapped in the woods and starts to fight, she's the only one who have the powers to help them.

I was interested in the shape shifting and the powers of the dragons, but I didn't enjoy too much the characters. As I said before, Zoe was very immature and I didn't liked how her "friends" treated her. She had too much pressure of herself, and they always asked her to do things she couldn't do. Also, they are supposed to know each other since babies, but when a mage comes and puts a spell on them, they not only hated her and tried to hurt her, but actually were very mean to her.

Sometimes it was a unrealistic, as for example when Zoe instantly developed her powers. Or when the hot, older and good-mage guy finds her interesting, specially after she's described to be as a 12 years old girl. I think in the next books, when Zoe is older and more sure of herself, this little details will work better.

But I have to admit that what I liked more was the turns in the plot. When I thought everything was going to be simple, the author actually managed to change something and made the story better.

Overall, Flying Blind it an interesting debut from this author into Young Adult books. It has fantasy, romance, action and awesome dragons. Although it wasn't for me, I think some of you might enjoy it.

More about this book at www.deborahcooke.com, Goodreads, Amazon, The Book Depository.