Very entertaining. The kids loved it. Great study of alliteration.

I love this series and this one was so exciting, I loved the illustration of the dragon with eyes on his claws,

Things are not going well for Hiccup at all. I can't help but think of Harry Potter as these books go on. At some point, Harry is the 'number one undesirable' and Hiccup is very much in the same boat at the start of this book. There's a war and a rebellion. I can feel the maturity levels go up with each book. As much as I love the movies, I wish these books had better adaptations because this book would have been amazing on screen.

EDIT 3// screaming Valhallarama's name every day of my life
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EDIT 2// I wish I could make everyone read this book. I wish the whole world would read this book and think about it every piece of it long and hard. Though I had There must be poetry, even in Monsters tattooed on my arm, it is only as a stand in for the fact that I could not have Valhallarama's entire scene written there.

A mark is only a symbol, and symbols can CHANGE.

--

EDIT// I'm sorry, but this book is perfect.

If I could give it more than five stars, I would.

I would quote the whole book as proof, but it would take too long. You don't understand. This book literally starts with an author's note apologizing for the fact that it's a story about how much growing up sucks. It ends with an epilogue about how terrible the present may be because of the choices you made before, but if you hadn't made those choices, you would miss out on the present joy, too, so you have to cheer your past self on. And everything in between... is the most beautiful tragedy.

And Valhallarama... I don't want to spoil it, but I have never met a more perfect badass. I want to be her. Or marry her. I don't know.

There must be poetry, even in Monsters.

--

These books have finally done it.

Hold on- I need a few minutes to collect my thoughts from where they are smashed and scattered on the ground among the fragments of my heart.

These books have finally done it.

When I started, I was holding this series up to what I thought was an impossible standard, expecting something great and profound and beautiful from a bunch of books aimed at ten-year-old boys, full of silly story logic and fart jokes and clueless characters. But there was always a hint, the tiniest idea that there was something deeper waiting behind this story - and as I moved forward, passed into book seven, Cressida Cowell showed me I was right. In book eight, she broke me. In book nine, I cried.

Here, in book ten, my world shattered into a hundred thousand pieces as this series finally destroyed my unreasonable expectations, absolutely obliterated the impossible standard to which I was holding it, and ripped my heart viciously apart. This book was something dark and horrifying and beautiful, this book was tragic and yet woven through with threads of glory and wonder, this book was worth every single time I rolled my eyes and sighed and wished this series could be better, but kept reading anyway.

And finally, these books surpassed the movies. The How to Train Your Dragon movies, which are among my favorite movies in the world, pale in comparison to the epic tale that the How to Train Your Dragon books- the How to Become a Hero the Hard Way books, as another reviewer proposed they be renamed- have finally, finally become. I wish the movies had been this good.

I have one book left to read- entitled How to Betray a Dragon's Hero, so I predict my already vulnerable heart will be a useless puddle by the end of it- and then one more book coming out later this year. I suspect it might be the last one. I suspect my life will be a yawning empty void when I finish it.

Why is it that the series whose next books I await with ravening need are all children's series right now? The Guardians, HTTYD (and once, long ago, Harry Potter, eh?)- something about them is so much more compelling than any other series I currently follow. Children's authors really do know what they're doing sometimes.




P.S. Valhallarama is the most insanely badass woman I have ever encountered and I would follow her to the grave and back. Unhesitating and unafraid.

4.5 review to come

woWoW