Talker 25 (Talker 25 #1) by Joshua McCune

🌟🌟🌓 out of 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Synopsis:
Debut author Joshua McCune's gritty and heart-pounding novel is a masterful reimagining of popular dragon fantasy lore, set in a militant future reminiscent of Paolo Bacigalupi's Ship Breaker and Ann Aguirre's Outpost.
It's a high school prank gone horribly wrong-sneaking onto the rez to pose next to a sleeping dragon-and now senior Melissa Callahan has become an unsuspecting pawn in a war between Man and Monster, between family and friends and the dragons she has despised her whole life. Chilling, epic, and wholly original, this debut novel imagines a North America where dragons are kept on reservations, where strict blackout rules are obeyed no matter the cost, where the highly weaponized military operates in chilling secret, and where a gruesome television show called Kissing Dragons unites the population. Joshua McCune's debut novel offers action, adventure, fantasy, and a reimagining of popular dragon lore.

Talker 25 reminded me a lot of How to Train Your Dragon if it was set in a militaristic society and was much darker. I enjoyed the darker tone of the story and certain characters' flawed and twisted logic when it came to dragons. The author presents the reader with the question of "If one person or animal does something horrible, does that make all of them evil?" 
Melissa has hated dragons for years because of what happened to her family but she comes to realize that humans and dragons can both make choices with deadly consequences for either side. 
I thought that the concept for this book was interesting but I would have liked to see it carried out in a clearer and more concise way. As I was reading it, it felt like the author jumped from one event to the next without any kind of fluidity or explanation. This led to me feeling confused and then frustrated because there would usually be a lull in the book right after. It seemed like characters were repeating certain lines of dialogue over and over. The same things kept happening without any kind of change and then the book ended in a predictable way to lead into the sequel.