The Sky Is Yours

By Chandler Klang Smith

It's a city under siege, mostly deserted by those who used to live there. City services are failing or gone. But still there are those who refuse to leave and who continue to fight against the forces trying to destroy everything.
Three young people come together to change the fate of the city, completely unknowing of their destiny. Swan, a baroness, trained by her ambitious mother to be the perfect daughter and perfect wife to some rich young man. But Swan has a secret and it may bring about her early death. Duncan, the spoiled wastrel indulged by his mother and a disappointment to his father, and the sole heir to a fabulous fortune and Swan's intended. Abby, a foundling raised by a crazy woman in a garbage dump. She is the key to the salvation of the city although no one knows this, not even Abby.
The three young people come together for Duncan's and Swan's wedding. Duncan, who has never actually met his bride, brings little orphan Abby to his wedding. He and Abby met when he crashed his flying machine on her garbage island. Abby saved him and bandaged his wounds and promptly fell headlong in love with the first man she had ever seen.
Swan does not handle having her fiancé's girl friend at their wedding too well, but since the contracts are all signed and under her mother's control, she goes ahead with it. But home invaders break into the mansion and Duncan's parents and Swan's mother are killed and the three young adults escape the chaos and come together briefly but end up going their separate ways. Lost in a dying city, completely unprepared to stand on their own two feet, and with anger and resentment and misunderstandings poisoning their relationships, they will be forced to face their individual destinies and truths.

This was an OK read. The premise, of a city under siege by two dragons, was kind of stupid. Oddly, the city stands alone against this assault, with no help from a national government or from any allies at all. Also oddly, the wealthy choose to stay there even though there is no logical reason for them to do so.
Really, this book doesn't make a lot of sense. The only really sympathetic character ends up dead. It's a strange story and it just didn't appeal to me very much, I think mainly for two reasons. First, it was supposed to be funny. But it mostly wasn't. Unless you find the grotesque and disgusting funny, which I don't. Second, the main characters are just not appealing people, except for one. And she comes off as dumb as dirt. I didn't like them and so I didn't care what happened to them.