[Review] Henchgirl

Henchgirl

by Rita Stradling

Publish date: January 12, 2016
Genre: Fantasy, young adult
Rating: 3/5

Goodreads summary


The children of dragons and humans, the dracons, control eighty percent of the world’s governments. Humans worldwide are either subservient or prey. On the small vacation island of Mabi, humans call for war.

Sixteen year old Dakota Kekoa lives a double life. By day, she pretends to be a human to infiltrate Mabi Academy, a 'human's only' high-school. At night, she works as a henchman for her draconic mafia family, utilizing her ability to steal and manipulate emotions.

When Dakota’s human friend is kidnapped, she takes on the mission to find her. This is not just any mission though; she is diving head first into the escalating conflict between humans and dracons. As more girls disappear and some are discovered dead, Dakota realizes her first honorable mission may also be her last.

My thoughts

I'll start with what I liked about this book. The story itself was great. I don't read a lot of books involving dragons, but the description led me to believe that there was so much more to this book. And I was right to think so. There's a lot going on in this book between the mystery Dakota is trying to solve, all while trying to juggle Wyvern and the dragon politics that go along with dating him.

Dakota is a wonderful character and she comes off very real. She's has fears about not being able to support her family so she's become a bit of a hard person. But yet, she's still vulnerable and insecure, even if it only slip out only on occasion.

Now, I'll move on to what could be improved upon. This story, as great as it was, is in severe need of at least a proofreader. I can overlook things like missing punctuation or a misspelling. What really bugs me is the incorrect use of words and phrases. One example that really got to me was at one point it said "she watched with wrapped attention" instead of "rapt attention." You can wrap a present, you can't wrap your attention. Unfortunately, this is just one of the numerous examples. They are simple errors, but there's just so many of them that it becomes distracting. However, take that with a grain of salt. I'm a copy editor by day, so my life is dedicated to rooting those things out.

** I was provided a copy of this book from Netgalley in return for an honest review

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