Gage Black and the Void Dragon is the story of a boy born with extremely rare and dangerous void magic and the ability to summon his own dragon. Shunned for this ability to destroy magic, he must overcome prejudice as he joins a school for magic users and ultimately joins in the fight to save his country.

First, the positives:
This book was such a fun ride. Gage was one of the more interesting protagonists I've seen in a dragon-rider fantasy, with his love for medicine and healing. His relationships with the other characters felt deep and realistic despite the short time frame from beginning to end, and I thoroughly enjoyed the dialogue in this book. The dragons, while not super original, were enjoyable and adorable and I loved reading about the bond between Gage and Alphen with their dragons. The plot left me curious as to Gage's future and I am happy to say I am intrigued enough to continue onto book two when it releases.

Now for the negatives:
The worldbuilding here was all over the place, to the point where the stakes felt underwhelming by the end. I left this story with a lot of confusion about how the country (and especially the army) worked, which is pretty bad considering Gage is in close proximity to royalty and military for the majority of the book. The villains were one-note and constantly beaten by the good guys (and where were their women and children?), which made the final conflict feel unexciting. The magic system was also a bit confusing, and I left the book wondering if it was even necessary for there to be elemental magic in the story alongside light and void magic, which were much more important. Hopefully these are issues that can be improved upon in the next book, because I do think this story has a lot of potential, and its intended middle grade audience will not be as picky about the worldbuilding and magic system as I am, but it was very distracting to catch all these issues while reading.