The Memoirs of Lady Trent #1
A Natural History of Dragons was a nope for me. The blurb and recommendations on Instagram had me excited to get my hands on it, so I spent a LibroFM credit on the audiobook. I fully expected to really enjoy this series, as it’s well aligned with what I like to read! I planned to listen to it while I was on vacation in February, but I got around to it when I returned.
While I had problems with the story (I’ll get to those), the narration didn’t improve anything. Often, I can forgive a story for annoying me if the narrator is good, but it’s hard to overcome both an annoying narrator and an annoying character. The voice used for the main character (and it’s a first-person narrative, so we get all her thoughts) is prissy, dry, strident and grating. It did not help me feel sympathetic to Lady Trent, and I assume I should like her.
Lady Trent irritated me a lot. I found her self-absorbed, insensitive and flat. She’s young, so I hope her character grows throughout the series. The people around her go to extremes to satisfy her interests, but it’s the old give-an-inch-take-a-mile vibe. I rolled my eyes multiple times while listening.
Some of the natural history aspects were way too gruesome for me, which contributed to my perception of Lady Trent as callous. That level of detail was not necessary. If the point is that Lady Trent is fully capable of everything being a scientific researcher entails, it doesn’t need to be repeated. The description of her actions as a child made me think of someone describing a serial killer’s childhood activities. “We all knew little Johnny was weird…” etc.
I found the portrayal of the Vystrana religion to be really offensive. Considering there are a lot of similarities to Judaism, it highlighted the colonial attitudes, superiority and othering of people who aren’t like the main characters. I don’t need to read that in my light fiction. I generally aim not to place modern sensibilities on works of fiction, but this was published in 2013 and I expect better.
A Natural History of Dragons still managed to make me cry. The one thing I’d hoped to temper and redeem Lady Trent didn’t work out, and I was devastated, absolutely devastated. It was my favourite thing about the book! I hate crying when reading, so it was another strike against Lady Trent.
It’s disappointing that my library doesn’t have ebook versions available, only audio. If I read with my eyes, Lady Trent would be far less annoying, and I’d be able to overlook all the irritants. I’ll keep going and hope Lady Trent grows up a little in the next book.
Publication Information
Publisher: Tor Books
First Published: February 5 2013
Audiobook Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Audiobook Narrator: Kate Reading
Format: Audiobook
Source: Library