Staying up all night with dragons

So sometimes I get into these moods where even though I have tons of books in my TBR pile, nothing feels quite right.  I start books, put them down, wander around the house staring at my shelves.  Sometimes I'll pick back up a book I'd started a while ago, sometimes I'll find a book that I'd forgotten about.  And recently, I've been in that kind of mood... nothing really fitting what I want to read.

One book that's been sitting in my TBR pile has been EON, DRAGONEYE REBORN, by Alison Goodman. I've heard great buzz about this book and have had the ARC for a while now.  I can't even explain my reticence in not having read it already.  Part of it is hesitance to jump into a bigger book when I have SO MANY books I want to read -- I'm not sure I want to spend the time on just one big book rather than a lot of smaller books.

But another reason was that when it comes down to it, I haven't really read a lot of straight up fantasy.  And EON seems like a straight up fantasy to me (I know that sounds crazy since most of my recent reading has been YA fantasy!!).  I've never read a book with dragons.  I wasn't sure if it was my cup of tea.  Even though a letter in the front of the ARC states clearly that lovers and loathers of fantasy will love this book.

I cracked it open, discussed the opening line or two with JP, still feeling very hesitant about the book... and promptly stayed up ALL NIGHT to read it.  For real, I read the last few pages as JP's alarm went off in the other room (I was banished to the living room cause of the light).  And let me tell you, this is a fantastic book to get lost in and boy did I lose all track of time and place... just read and read and read, falling deeply into the world, the words whizzing by on the page.

It's been a long time since I just utterly indulged and read a book in one sitting and it was glorious.  Clearly this is a book I loved and I do think the buzz is warranted.  It's a fantastic world that's easy to be in (I find some words are so complex I get lost) with rich details and fantastic and complex characters.  

When I pick up a book in a new sub-genre or type of world, I always wonder if some of my awe with the world is over conventions that everyone else who reads those types of books knows but me.  I remember being entranced at the creativity of the world in one book a few years back and explaining it to JP only to have him laugh and say that they were all well known tropes -- the author hadn't made any of it up at all.  

EON felt different to me, utterly whole and unique.  It's rooted in cultural aspects of China and Japan and in my mind while reading it I saw over and over again the pictures from JP's recent trip to China.  Maybe someone else will read it and say "bah, all tropes" but that didn't matter to me last night when I just lost myself in the book.

I can't wait to see what happens when EON, DRAGONEYE REBORN hits the shelves at the end of the month!  And I can't wait for the next one!