So, it’s not often that I’m so completely offended by a book. I honestly need to just let this out. I absolutely DNF’d this book, and it would take a lot to get me to actually read the rest. So please sit back, relax, and see just how fast I dropped this book.

So, I started to read Skyborn book 1 of the Dragons and Druids series by Leia Stone.

DNF Percentage: 1%.

So, I actually like the cover. There’s a nice contrast, the title font is actually pretty cool look to me. The contrast of the red hair and the green background caught my eye. But that’s not what really got me excited.

DRAGONS AND DRUIDS. My favorite animal and DRUIDS! You know, something from my culture that was pretty much stomped out. I would love to read about those two. I was actually really excited. I literally can’t explain how much I love dragons. I have several books with dragons in the works, and I would write a billion more.

So then I read the summary:

Sloane Murphy thought hiking the Grand Canyon alone after graduation would be an awesome adventure. Until she slips and starts to plummet to her death. Then the unthinkable happens.

She transforms into… a dragon.

After flying to safety and trying to convince herself she isn’t having a mental breakdown, the hunters come for her. She runs, somehow managing to stay one step ahead of them. Until her luck runs out. Now the hunters have her and they intend to kill, not capture.

That’s when he comes for her.

Logan Sharp is the last dragon shifter alive. Or so he thinks, until he gets word that the druids are hunting a red headed female. His team takes her in, sheltering her because there is a truth she must learn: if the skyborn die out, then so does humanity.

But Sloane is hiding a dark secret that she doesn’t even know yet. A secret that could change everything.

*Recommended reading age 16+ due to language

Dude. How. Cool does that sound?? Like, okay, it gives away a bunch of stuff but it got me intrigued! I can’t wait to see Sloane’s first shift. I want to feel that excitement, that exhilaration! The premise just gets me giddy!

Ok, let’s crack open that book!! Let’s do this.

Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I got too hyped. But as an author, I can’t excuse her decisions. Here’s an actual screenshot of the actual first page of Skyborn so you can experience the suffering with me.

Didn’t quite make it out? Here’s a closer look.

MY FEET POUNDED the ground as I ran down the secluded street that housed the cabin I had been hiding out in. I thought this plan would have lasted longer, but only two days and the hunters had found me. Dammit! As the rage and fear mixed within me, I could sense my skin tightening, the pearlescent scales forming along my arms. No! It had been two weeks since I’d fallen off the ledge while hiking the Grand Canyon and ignited some freak power that had shifted my body into a dragon.

Yes, a dragon. 

I didn’t know how to control it. I didn’t know how it happened, or if I was just living with a really bad case of schizophrenia. I just knew that ever since that day I had been running for my life from these hunters who kept trying to kill me.

No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, nO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO , NO, NO, NO, NO, NO , NO, NO, NO, NO, NO,

NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHO TAUGHT YOU THIS?!?! WHAT EDITOR THOUGHT THAT THIS WAS OK!?

Show don’t tell is kind of a reaLLY FUCKING IMPORTANT ASPECT OF WRITING. I literally felt like I’d been punched in the stomach when I read this.

The summary literally focuses on something that doesn’t even happen in the book. Okay, it might happen in a flashback but WHY NOT START THERE?!? If it didn’t focus so heavily on that maybe I wouldn’t be so angry. But I literally threw everything I was going to do aside to bitch about this.

I DNF’d on the fiRST PAGE.

I’ve read some reviews on Goodreads, and somehow they end up in a club, and Sloan gets groped. Because of course, they do. Because of course, she does.

Oh, and I can tell you for a fact that this is a generic Chosen One story right off the bat. It’s painfully obvious, I didn’t need the Goodreads reviews. Somehow this piece of trite nonsense has a 3.93 on the site.

Just… don’t do this shit. It almost made me want to never write again. Then it fired me up to do better. Fuck this shit. Fuck bad writing. Fuck this level of Telling and Not Showing. That’s it. I’m out. I’m done. The beginning was just that bad. I’m done.