Though I am a devourer of YA fantasy (also fantasy in general), the trope of dragons has never been super appealing to me. I tend to find them...boring. So I took a chance on this book for whatever reason, and I was surprised by how much I actually liked it. I thought that the main characters' struggles with self were really profound. They come from two entirely different backgrounds, Annie and Lee, but have both found themselves orphans that have been raised by the regime to be part of a elite class in the new social system. They both desperately care for one another (yes, romantically, but also they were just connected on a really deep level),even though they would have been enemies in the past regime. (Kind of, one of them would have essentially been a slave serving the other person). Now they're on the same level playing field, if that field had been entirely razed to the ground until nothing was left. As both characters grapple with what it means to be fair and just and create a system that's truly meritocratic and accessible to all, a lot of ... events outside of their control are set into motion that really forces them to decide on their positions once and for all.