This was tough to rate because of the elephant in the room that is the movie. If I compared this to the movie, I'd give this a lower score just because I just liked the movie better in most aspects. I had to remember that this idea was pretty cool and original...and that it had an uphill battle at the start because it was read by Gerard Doyle (reader of the Eragon series - which had me predisposed to dislike this). I also found Toothless annoying - there I said it. 
 I won't go into differences between the movie and book because they're almost completely unrelated. All I'll say is that Hiccup of the movie and the book are both rebels from the conventions of their viking societies. Where Hiccup of the movie is more of a tinkerer, Hiccup of the book is more of a naturalist/thinker. It's worth reading, but I'm not sure if I'll go onto the following books.