This was very good

Man leaves the formal navy to join the slutty dragon air force and befriends a dragon who is smarter and more enjoyable than all English humans combined

I swear Naomi Novik looked deep into the recesses of my brain and said, "Hey, you like dragons, platonic love stories, and unflinching portrayals of colonial England, yeah? Here you go." The Temeraire series feels like it was made in a lab just for me and I am genuinely shocked that it took me this long to pick up a book that so many people told me I would love. The platonic love between Temeraire and Laurence is the heart and soul of this series. It has everything you'd want in this kind of love story; unflinching dedication, willingness to throw everything else they care about away for the other person, tender affection, small routines of a life spent loving one another like reading together before bed, absolutely losing it when the other person is threatened in any way, and falling apart at the seams when separated for any length of time. They just don't want to have sex about it. It's PERFECT! Also I really mean it when I say this series takes an unflinching look at the atrocities committed by the British Empire around the world. Novik is clearly well-read on the history, politics, and social nuances of the era and she uses all that knowledge to call out even sympathetic characters when they are complicit in the rampant human rights abuses around them. It was a delightful surprise for me.