The Becoming

🐍 🔪 👴🏻

This is fun and silly. I liked Marco joining Breen for her portal quest adventure- it's always annoying when the chosen portal girlie is like “oh my secret I can't tell anyone, I'll just be mysterious and weird” and I liked that Marco gets to come too. Their relationship is so goofy though like on one hand I'm excited for Nora to include a Black queer character but on the other lol Marco's personality is like basically a sassy throw pillow and there is a lot of “telling not showing” about how they have BESTIES more like siblings forever but like. You know what whatever bc I'm obsessed with these 2 introducing “Shallow” to the fairies based on their karaoke performances back on Earth.

Normally I do think Nora really excels at character development and side friendships/relationships so I do think that uhh maybe Marco is just based on like Karamo from Queer Eye or something but uhhhhhhh she's trying

anyway this is SILLY, actively smoothing my brain!!! Yes girl let's have a pretty dress montage!!! Yes girl let's bond with a beautiful dragon!! Yes girl let's have a crystal acquisition montage!!! Oh girl your love interest is gruff and stoic but his eyes soften when he looks at you??? tell me about it BREEN

Suffers from "second book of a trilogy" syndrome, with a good bit of "more scenes with people we saw earlier."

Another enjoyable read! So pleased that Marco was still in this story. Some great one liners in this book - especially from Marco. Dragons! Breen had her own dragon!

I couldn't finish it. I absolutely loved the first book, but I quit listening to the audiobook when I was 85% through. It was a slog.

Nora writes a queer secondary character and he gets his own romance!!! I think that is a first for her. At the end of [b:The Awakening 49127421 The Awakening (The Dragon Heart Legacy, #1) Nora Roberts https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1584711286l/49127421.SY75.jpg 74580741], Breen's gay BFF Marco was pulled with her into the realm of fairies, dragons, and magic. His lively presence adds a welcome spark to the “beautiful people with Irish accents take on the Big Bad” trope that Nora has used before. And he gets to fall in love too! Meanwhile, Breen the Chosen One deepens her powers, Keegan the Taoiseach continues to be a bit of an alpha-hole, and the Big Bad guys get a new eeeeevil ally. At this point as far as I'm concerned, it's Marco's series now, and everyone else is a supporting player. Nora had better give him a happy ending, or there will be Consequences.