well, I stuck this one out to the end but don't have much good to say. I kept reading because the setting and premise is interesting enough, and I wanted to see them level up. learn, grow, etc. but it ended up being mostly the ol' sudden dramatic level up during crisis trope. Well, it was to be expected given how tropey the rest of it was.
And speaking of crisis, when Sid first arrived to the dragon fight, he apparently had enough time to give the students an unhurried speech while Alvin was literally dying and could be killed by the dragon at any moment. And then again later when the other students join in, there was time for a touching unhurried farewell while these students that haven't even fully grapsed how to use Will hold off a dragon by themselves? I guess they got the crisis power up too? Also once Sid has his limiter removed, one of the first things that happens is the dragon's lower jaw gets cut off. So how is it biting at Sid afterwards? All the fight scenes are just terrible.