Fireborne by Rosaria Munda (audiobook)

genre: young adult fantasy

On the island nation of Callipolis, a bloody revolution overthrew the dragonlord regime and nine years later, a new type of government has been pieced together in which your role in life - your profession, your standing, is determined by a test that is administered to all citizens as they come of age.  People with the greatest capabilities may have the honor of becoming guardians - those who have dedicated their lives to protecting the island from astride the back of their own dragon.  Now, not just the wealthy landowners are dragonriders, anyone from any background may have that honor - and both Annie and Lee know that to reach the position of "firstrider," they will have to be the best of the best.  Orphans from very different backgrounds, Annie's family was killed by a dragonlord but Lee's was murdered by the revolutionaries themselves, living a secret life and hiding the fact that he's dragonborn-family survivor working his way through the ranks as he maneuvers to finally live the dream he had back when he was a boy.  But when it comes time for the Firstrider Tournament, outside pressure will force Lee to choose sides when shadows of the past reach out and influence the present.  The stakes are so high but both Annie and Lee are so capable - if they can remain true to themselves.

This was a GREAT listen.  I love revolutionary stories but the thing that made this so intriguing was that we weren't a part of the revolution itself, we watched how things are put back together again, how old ideas influence the new and how incredibly challenging it is to change the minds of an entire society.  Ideas and culture and prejudice run so deep and I really liked the plot device of Lee being a closeted dragonborn - it makes emotions so high and decisions so much harder.  I liked the hard look at classism and how a belief that one group of people is innately MORE WORTHY than another can color our choices and our morals.  Annie is a strong female carrier that works hard to come into her own.   The romantic plot is less straightforward and more interesting than in the usual young adult novel and I appreciated the nuance.  The plot of the book and the overarching ideas I really liked, even if sometimes the minutiae of the telling felt a bit scattered as we move back and forth both in time with one omniscient narrator and the points of view of both Lee and Annie.  Sometimes we are just told about something that happened after the fact instead being a part of the action, which with two solid narrators felt a little frustrating, that I had to guess at details.  There's some repetition that I think more editing could've solved (how many times to I have to be told that people have bruises under their eyes?) but that's me being super nitpicky.  I wanted to listen to this story nonstop and I found myself gushing to my teenage son about it, who wants to read it next.