(5 / 5)
I don’t even know where to begin with this one. It was phenomenal. I feel completely unequal to the task of reviewing this book. I almost never give 5 stars to a book that doesn’t change me in some way, but I am abandoning that standard here because this book is just too perfect. I’ve been putting off reading it for a couple years now, hoping that Patrick Rothfuss will finally complete his trilogy and thus pave the way for me to binge read all three at once-but that was not to be. So, I moved on to Plan B, which was to enjoy the first two while I still had the desire to read them. Now that I’ve finished I’m almost frustrated I held on to Plan A for so long. Of course I’ll want to re-read this when/if the third and final book comes out. It’s just that good.
Firstly, our MC Kvothe is the perfect protagonist. Which is to say, he isn’t perfect. He’s head strong, impatient, stubborn, and highly secretive. He’s also tender, brilliant, wise, and clever. He doesn’t strictly fall into the “chosen one” trope but no one reading this book hoping for a theme along those lines will be disappointed. Kvothe may be one of my all-time favorite main characters.
The secondary characters are wonderful, even the evil ones. Rothfuss has a gift of giving us all we need to know about a character without detracting from the story or MC. There are a lot of characters but somehow it’s not difficult to keep track of them all.
This book is long but I swear it doesn’t feel like it. It hooked me really quickly and I was enjoying myself so much that I was glad I had so many pages to read. Do not let the page count turn you away.
Finally, this book is perfect for any level of fantasy lover. I would say it’s somewhere in between Harry Potter and Brandon Sanderson, but that said, it’s completely different from either of those types of books. It has the feel of high fantasy without the intensity and steep learning curve. It’s not placed in the modern world but more closely resembles a world that looks more like ours used to 200 years ago-except with fantastical elements of course.
If you like fantasy at all you cannot pass this up.
Language: Low Violence: Medium Adult Content: Medium/Low