Book Review: The Dragon's Playlist by Laura Bickle

 

Book Description

“This is war,” the dragon said. And she believed him.

Di fled rural West Virginia to study music and pursue a bright future as a violinist. But when a mining accident nearly kills her father, she is summoned back home to support her family. Old ghosts and an old flame emerge from the past. When Di gets a job as a bookkeeper at the same mine where her father worked, she is drawn into a conflict pitting neighbor against neighbor as the mine plans an expansion to an untouched mountain.

If the mining company’s operation goes forward, there will be more at stake than livelihoods or the pollution of the land: Di has discovered a dragon lives deep within Sawtooth Mountain, and he is not happy with this encroachment upon his lair. When catastrophe strikes, Di must choose between her family’s best interests and protecting the dragon – the last surviving bit of magic in Di’s shrinking world.

In every fight, sides are chosen. And there can be no yearning for what has been left behind.

My Review

When Di is informed that her father was in a mining accident, she drops everything and comes home only to find that it's worst than she thought. Her father is a shell of his former self and is hurt really bad. But while home she gets to visit with her grandfather who is having memory problems but can also still play the violin along with her which brings her spirits up. Then when she has car trouble and her ex-boyfriend stops to help her and comes home with her, she finds out that he has been really helpful to her family. He actually helped pull her father out of the mine when it collapsed. Over time they seem like they are going to rekindle their relationship. 

Di also makes friends with Will who is against the expansion of the mining operation because of the pollution it could cause. The mining company wants to expanding their operation to the Sawtooth Mountain where they hope to be able to get the coal. But they don't know that a dragon lives in that mountain and is willing and able to stop them. When Di finds the dragon, he seems to like music and likes the music she makes with the violin. He even talks to her a bit when it's pretty clear he just wants to be left alone.

I really thought that this was going to be a book about the dragon but the dragon was a mere side story. This book was more about coal mining, the pollution that it might cause, the damage the mining causes to the land and how miners are treated by the company. It poses real world problems with a side of magic...a very small side of magic. This could have been a really good book but it bored me to tears. I kept reading because I was really hoping that it would get better and the dragon would play a bigger part but it didn't. The ending was anti-climatic and just fell flat for me. This book could have been so good but it left me wanting the hours back that I spent reading it. 

I give this book 1 out of 5 stars. 

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