I jumped on the hype train with this book, mainly because the premise sounded interesting - a dragon riding college? But I admit that this is the first ever "romance" book I've read, and I'm not sure what to make of that regarding this book. In my opinion, there wasn't really much romance in this book, but rather quite a lot of horniness. Which ironically is also what I liked least about this book (aside from its very militaristic nature). I think it could have been an infinitely better book without the main character constantly salivating over some guy, who no less is supposedly the son of someone who killed her brother? WTF??? I get that it serves to illustrate that not everything is black and white, but I found it cringe at times.

What I did like about the book is the worldbuilding (again, minus the militaristic nature). The dragons are pretty cool, as is the magic system of bonding to magical creatures. It's a very decent entry-level fantasy book, which is well written and mostly well-paced (but IMHO could also have been condensed in some aspects).

Does it live up to the hype? I don't think so. Will I still read book 2 and 3? Definitely.