Review by DragonLight877 -- The Gryphon by Paula Grover

[DragonLight877]

[Following is a volunteer review of "The Gryphon" by Paula Grover.]

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3 out of 4 stars

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The Gryphon by Paula Grover starts with a Gryphon named Sunsky. Sunsky is next in line to be premiere queen of the land of Gyphonia. Her mate, Dreamspinner, is the male form of a gryphon, an opinicus. Sunsky loves to fly off on random flight adventures, against the rules of her royal caretakers. One day, during one of these adventurous flights, Sunsky gets trapped in a bad storm. She falls into the mountains with a broken wing. Now grounded, Sunsky meets a winged horse named Nightsky. Winged horses are seen as very bad omens, they are very disliked amongst the gryphons. But this horse is different, he is kind. As they grow closer, Sunsky makes a decision, and that decision changes Sunsky's life forever, as she is cast into the Valley of Outcasts for what she's done.

I thought this was a lovely book. It seems like it was written for younger readers, but I don't see that as an issue. The characters were written differently than, I guess, human characters would have been written. I liked the way they talked and acted. They had certain ways that they cawed or cooed that I could see bird beings like themselves doing. The characters also changed and grew throughout the story, which I always think is important.

What I liked most about this story was the differences in culture between the different races. There were gryphons, hippogryphs, winged horses, and other cultures, and each one was unique and different. I enjoyed the thought put into all the different ways they would interact and regard each other.

As for what I liked the least, I did not like the overabundance of focus on finding a mate. For most of this story a large part of the characters was finding mates, and who was breeding with who, and who could have this partner or that partner. It isn't a part of the story that should be ignored, but I thought it was in this story a little too much.

So, I give this book a 3 out of 4, I thought the story was interesting, and I thought the characters had charm and individuality. I only give it a 3 and not a 4 because I think the story could have been a little more engaging. And as I said, the characters were focused more on finding mates and breeding than engaging in the story in some cases. I would also like to mention that I did not find any grammatical errors, which is extremely rare.

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The Gryphon
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