One day while browsing Amazon's best seller book list, I came across the sequel to The Name of the Wind. It seems fans of the first book in the trilogy were desperate to get their hands on a copy and had raved about how absorbing the first book had been, and how they couldn't put it down, and how they had waited (im)patiently for the Author to finally release the sequel, etc etc. With a follow up like that, I just HAD to read the first book in the series. Hence, I ran over to a bookstore in Dubai and luckily they had the book in stock.
The book belongs to the Fantasy genre, and being a HUGE fan of Harry Potter and the Narnia series, I was eager to check out a book in the same genre written for adults. While reading the Harry Potter books in particular, I used to get lost in the story and the magical world JK Rowling had spun for me. By the time the movies came out, I had my own version of what Hogwarts looked like, which incredulously turned out to be very similar to what the movie version was. The beauty of Rowling's writing was that her descriptions were just so vivid. I was hoping Patrick Rothfuss would be just as successful.
As much as I WANTED to immediately get lost in the world of Kvothe, the protagonist of the story, I must say it took me a long while to. I was practically two-thirds into the book, picking it up every few days and reading a few pages, just because I was determined to finish it. Somewhere halfway through, when the young Kvothe makes it into University is when the storyline started to get interesting for me- probably a hangover from my Harry Potter days! Once that happened, there was no putting the book down. It really absorbed me into it's world and became one of those fast paced page-turners that avid readers love. A lot of people who've read the book seem to have had the opposite effect and say the book gripped them from the first page, so if you're a huge fan of Fantasy novels already, you may have the same experience. While the forms of magic, money, university, countries, people, customs, etc are all fictional and have been given names to create a new world, I felt like it was a bit too tedious for me and as a fast reader I found it slowed me down as I had to pay attention to every word and every description on the page. Another thing I found very tedious were the number of characters in the book who are just not necessary and could have been completely done without. Especially since they had confusing names, I found myself constantly wishing there was some sort of glossary or chart to help me out.
Having said that, did I absolutely love the second half of the book and glad I read it? Yes. Will I be getting the sequel? Most definitely! Would I recommend the book to readers of this blog? As I mentioned earlier, if you're a fan of Fantasy novels, this book does not fail to disappoint. While reading the book I gave it a maximum of two years before it would get snapped up and made into a Blockbuster Hollywood movie. While googling the title to get a picture of the cover for this blog post, I came across a whole bunch of fan-made movie trailers for what I assumed to be the already existing movie. Turns out, they are actually just a bunch of video clips taken from other movies, put together to showcase their interpretation of the film. The way I see it, if you've read the Harry Potter series and like me, were a huge fan, this book will give you a bit of a grown up version of it. At almost 700 pages long, it's not a quick read so if you're looking for one, don't even bother. But if you want your introduction to Fantasy fiction, I suggest you start with Rowling's books and get inducted to Pottermania rather than jumping into this one.
If you do read the book (or have already) I'd be definitely be interested to know what you think, so do keep me posted!
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