Reading Report: Late January 2024

I just finished my fourth book for January 2024. It was The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. I gave it a B grade.

I may raise or lower that grade later, depending on how the book sits with me. It probably deserves worse, to be honest, but I’m trying not to be too vengeful in my grading. You see, it’s a 662-page book in which almost nothing happens. It leaves numerous questions unanswered and is clearly nothing but a set-up for a series. That kind of book always leaves me feeling not only disappointed but also manipulated.

You’d think you’d get more from a book blurbed by Ursula K. Le Guin, Terry Brooks, and Orson Scott Card! I bought the book on impulse, while at a bookstore, after having had it recommended to me repeatedly. So I paid full price, and that doesn’t help with my feelings of having been manipulated.

Is it a bad book? No. Does it have problems? Yes, it does. Am I going to go into them? Not really. I’m just going to give a brief description of the story. It’s a fantasy novel about a man named Kvothe who is famous in his world, but he’s currently living incognito as an innkeeper in an out-of-the-way town. He is tracked down by someone called the Chronicler to whom he agrees to tell his life’s story.

After reading all 662 pages, I still don’t know why the character is famous, or why he’s hiding out, or much about his world except that it has Gypsy wannabes, dragon wannabes, fairy wannabes, and some form of magic. The text is perfectly readable, good at times, but it leaves just too many questions unanswered.

I ordered the second book of the series from the library. At the time I requested the book, I thought I’d probably read it, because I wanted to at least know why I’d bothered with the first one. But, according to Wikipedia, the two books are part of an intended trilogy, and the third book hasn’t been published yet, even though the second book came out in 2011. And after reading the Patrick Rothfuss page at Wikipedia, I’m not so sure I should even bother with the second book. Shame on all the Rothfuss fans who keep recommending the unfinished series even though the author keeps leaving them hanging!

Just goes to show, you listen to other people’s book recommendations at your own peril.