Review: How to Train Your Dragon

How to Train Your Dragon
How to Train Your Dragon, Book 1

Author: Cressida Cowell
Narrator: David Tennant
Duration: 3 hrs, 29 mins
Publisher: Hachette Childrens Books
Read: June 25-28, 2013
Source: Gifted - thanks YA Books Central!

Description from Goodreads:
Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III is a truly extraordinary Viking hero known throughout Vikingdom as "the Dragon Whisperer" ... but it wasn't always so. Travel back to the days when the mighty warrior was just a boy, the quiet and thoughtful son of the Chief of the Hairy Hooligans. Can Hiccup capture a dragon and train it without being torn limb from limb? Join the adventure as the small boy finds a better way to train his dragon and becomes a hero!

Review:

As we all know, movies often aren't much like the books they're based on, and that's incredibly true here. Now, the setting's the same: Vikings, dragons, characters and all that. However, there are a couple of major differences, based even on what I remember from the movie I saw once about three years ago. When you think of How to Train Your Dragon, I bet your first thought is something along these lines:

Certainly, I did. Awkward boy befriends adorable dragon. Cuteness abounds. Everyone learns things. Not really how it goes down, though. The actual story is definitely tailored to a little boy audience, with gross jokes, battles and such. Also, Toothless is creepy as all get out. And green.

No, seriously. Toothless is not remotely adorable. He's crude and gross, and purposely poops all over Hiccup's house. Also, he hates Hiccup for most of it, and Hiccup hates him, mostly because the Vikings actually use dragons as slaves after they DRAGONNAP them from their caves when they're babies. That's one of the tests to become a full member of the tribe. As is training the dragon to do what you say by yelling at it. Oh, AND Toothless is way smaller than in the movie. Hiccup can carry him around. If anything, Toothless reminded me of Gollum. Yeah.

Basically, I kept expecting the story to end with a realization that dragons need to be treated more equally, considering that they're smart and have their own language and everything, but that didn't really happen. Like, at the end, I think they respect dragons a little more, but still plan to make the dragons do what they say. I just didn't really feel that much sympathy with the Vikings when the HUGE dragon arrives with plans to eat them, yanno?

Also, just fyi, there was not a single female character in this story that I noticed. Not a one. Apparently the Vikings figured out a way to procreate with only men, or with dragons. Of course, I don't think that's true. Women are just so unimportant they're wholly unworthy of mention. Thanks, movie, for adding in a wholly not historically accurate female character who was in the same class as the boys. I mean, there are dragons, so are we really that big on historical accuracy?

Much as I didn't like the story, because it's just totally not for me, there is one reason I rated this three stars and did like listening to it:

THIS GUY.

WORTH IT. Oh, David Tennant. I love him as Doctor Who, of course, but now I got to hear him go full on Scottish, and I loved it. He's a delightful narrator, just as you would expect. He even did a voice that was rather reminiscent of Jeremy Irons for the giant, man-eating dragon. I just sort of tried to pay as little attention as possible to the story and to soak in the accents.

OH YEAH.

I wish I could say that I liked this enough overall to want to continue with the rest of the audiobooks he narrated (which is six or seven of the series), but I don't. As much as I love David Tennant, I would have to buy each one from Audible, and that's just too much money for books I don't like. If my library had them, well, that would be another story.

I'm sorry, but it was beautiful while it lasted.

So, there you have it. Unless you're a huge David Tennant fan (why wouldn't you be?) or totally okay with the absence of women and treatment of the dragons, you'll probably want to skip this one. However, that's sad. Let's look at David Tennant one more time, huh?

How awesome is this man?

Rating: 3/5