Hello my dearies and fantasy lovers! Today is friday and one fantastical fantasy Friday!

✨️Wooooooooo ✨️

As you may have caught on Wednesday, my week has been both hectic and chill. A chectic? Hill?

Either way, I am coming to you today with a narrative that I was finally able to finish, Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier🐉

As spoken last week, I left off only being roughly 20% of the way through the book. It started off with a bang, throwing us into the narrative and was full of expansive and detailed scenery that made narrative come alive.

Well, I come bearing good fruit (teehee) and good news that this book was indeed everything I thought it would be.

It gave a Pixar esque story narrative, if that makes sense. Thorough narrative, strong sense of self, character development, whimsical animal compatriots, it was as delightful, thought provoking, endearing, heart breaking that I thought it would be.

With the media portrayals within how natives, specifically Polynesian and Pacific Islanders as of late, reading this felt prominent. It gave mythos and Lore that felt real and told in a way, even within a outsider perspective, could understand the core values. Family, culture, identity, home. Those are themes that some other pieces of media are sorely laking when it comes to the representation. Which I think is because of the culture shift. It isn't those a part of those narratives telling the story and within those tellings, it can come off disingenuous.

I bring that up because within the narrative something that within Hanalei, we experience the importance of home and of having a culture you call your own. We look through her perspective as she explores the world through the first part of the book away from her home. Her people. And this is something that a lot of those with Polynesian diaspora speak hold dear. Traditions, culture and family. It is of great importance.

This story was lovely, at times cozy, romantic (including platonic) and is heartwarming. It's always great reading dragon narratives but we often forget that there is not one culture that has them.

Definitely read this book, if you didn't get that from my rant, lol! I enjoyed it so much and I hope you do as well!!!