Book Review: The Mark of the Dragonfly

Book: The Mark of the Dragonfly by Jaleigh Johnson

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: March 25, 2014

Rating: 5 stars

Review:

The Mark of the Dragonfly held my interest all the way through to the end. It's the story of an orphaned 13 years old girl named Piper who tries to get by as a scrapper, which is someone who goes out to the meter fields and tries to find something that's of some value that they can take to the markets and sell. The story takes place on an alternate Earth or an Earth like planet and there's a field near Scrap Town number 16 (where Piper lives), where meters drop out of the sky and embedded in the meters are things from our Earth and possibly other planets.

So on the day of the latest meter shower that was to rain down on them, Piper left the shelter to go find her friend Micah who had went out to the field to get a head start on scavenging. While trying to stay safe during the storm, Micah had been injured as well as Piper saw a caravan being destroyed by the meters.

In the caravan wreckage, Piper found a girl who was unconscious but breathing. After taking a seriously injured Micah home where a healer looked over him, Piper returned home to check on the girl. Turns out this mysterious girl had a special tattoo on her arm, a dragonfly, which meant that she was protected by King Aron of the Dragonfly territories.

Finding the girl who's name is Anna turned out to be the beginning of a whole new life for Piper. First, they had to escape from Piper's house to get away from a menacing guy who not only survived the caravan destruction but also claimed he was Anna's father. Anna was so afraid of him that Piper knew there was no way she was going to let him leave with the girl. The two girls quickly escaped on a train and soon set out on a highflying adventure.

I enjoyed the unique world the author created because it's new and different yet still familiar and relatable. I thought the characters Piper, Anna, Gee, Jayne and Trimble were all interesting. They each had different personalities and quirks that I liked and I even found the villain to be quite interesting.

I thought this was a very well written daring adventure that had two girls going from strangers to finding a sort of family out in this eclectic world.

Although, this is geared towards younger readers (middle grade) it's written in a way that I think anyone who might enjoy a good sci-fi story may also enjoy reading this.