I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons

I really wanted to love this. Honestly, the premise of I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons is exactly the kind of thing that usually has me hitting "Add to Cart" immediately. A world where dragons are basically household pests (the "vermin" in the walls) and our protagonist, Robert, is the reluctant exterminator who actually feels a deep, quiet kinship with the creatures he’s hired to kill? That’s pure gold.

But here’s the thing: I came into this looking for that specific brand of TJ Klune whimsy; the kind that feels like a warm hug, a bit silly, and deeply "found family". I wanted The House in the Cerulean Sea with scales. Instead, this fell... well, a little flat.

The first half definitely had me. It sets up this satirical, Princess Bride-esque world where Princess Cerise is more annoyed by her beauty than anything else, and Prince Reginald is a "hero" mainly because his terrifying father forced him into it. The humor is there, especially with the tiny, mouse-sized dragons that I wish we had spent way more time with.

However, as the story moved into the second half, the "whimsy" I was craving started to evaporate. It shifted from a quirky character study into a more traditional, almost grim, "defeat the evil wizard" plot.

The Pacing: It’s a short book, but somehow it felt slow. We spent a lot of time wandering back and forth between the same locations, and by the time the "big stakes" kicked in, I found my internal monologue drifting.

The Tone Shift: It gets surprisingly dark. There’s a bit of body horror and genuine violence that felt jarring against the "pest control" comedy of the opening chapters. It lost that "cozy" spark and traded it for a bad guy plot that felt a little cliché.

The Characters: I liked Robert. He’s full of heart. But the connection between the trio (Robert, Cerise, and Reginald) didn't have that "spark" I was looking for. I wanted to be invested in their soul-searching, but I ended up just feeling like a polite observer.

This isn't a bad book by any means. Peter S. Beagle is a legend for a reason, and his prose is, as always, beautiful and sharp. If you love classic, slightly satirical high fantasy that doesn't mind getting its hands a little dirty, you’ll probably enjoy this more than I did.

But if you’re like me and you were looking for that "silly-sweet" Klune energy or a story that stays in that whimsical "dragon-pest" lane, you might find yourself a bit bored by the end. It’s a solid 3 stars, but it’s the kind of book I’ll likely forget I read in six months.