Kyle Erickson

“What is a man's life worth?”
“The slavemasters say one is worth about two emerald broams.”
“And what do you say?”
“A life is priceless.”

It took me five months of casually dipping into The Way of Kings in between other books to finish my reread. Well, not true. It took me five months to read the first half. It took me three days to read the second half. Oops.

Idk how this is a book ostensibly about what great friends these two are and the power of friendship and yada yada when these are two of the most toxic, least friendly individuals I've ever read about. Aspects of this book were really good but the two main characters were so consistently poor at communicating and just the general concept of what a friend is, but we keep getting told how important their friendship is and how they have a bond for the ages and I just absolutely don't agree. So that soured me somewhat. Very toxic portrayal of friendship from the ground up.

I also didn't like how the author had every single character talk about life as if it's a game or the things they've learned from games just because they're gamers. I'm a gamer and I have lived my whole life around gamers and at no point has any of them waxed pontific about how the decisions they make in life are vaguely game like or that you can start over in a game but you can't in life and there are save points in games but there's no save points in life and yada yada. It would be fine if this was one character's viewpoint but it's everyone, always, even in life or death situations. Just very on the nose.

But this book did get genuine emotion out of me several times and had me close to tears at one point. The writing is very good and I think I would have liked the portrayal of the main characters more if we weren't constantly told how important they were to each other, because the character voices and personalities, in isolation, were well done.

This author is completely insufferable at every point however I do think this had a good look at the working class and especially at the time it was written was important for how others viewed these jobs and income brackets and I think people who have never had to work low income jobs or grow up poor could benefit from reading this.

Just....just don't act like this insufferable author. That's my take away. Holier than thou, naive, judgmental, vain. Did you guys know that Barbara Ehrenreich is COLLEGE EDUCATED folks?!?!?!?!?!! Step back, we have a college education strolling through. The worst part is when she takes a job as a waitress in Key West but is worried that PEOPLE ARE GOING TO RECOGNIZE HER NAME AND OUT HER. Are you really suggesting that in between all of the scrounging around to put food on the table and find appropriate housing and get through a shift with a little bit of sanity intact, that these people are going to be falling over themselves to recognize a journalist's name/picture and then think to themselves, “this is a trick! A scam! A dirty scallywag, exposing the seedy underside of my lifestyle! Away with you, tramp!”? The sheer GALL of this woman

Anyways can confirm that being poor sucks

This book is awesome.

Near the end of the book, some characters are proclaiming their loyalty to Mara, and I'm sitting there like “me too!!”. Mara is one of my favorite protagonists ever. The way she uses her cultural upbringing, her own perspective and intelligence, and the perspective of others to challenge the status quo and fight her enemies in ways they don't expect is just SO good.

I'm giving this 9.5/10 because it did feel a bit overlong in spots and there was a minor issue I had with the ending. But without a doubt one of the best political fantasy books I've ever read.

This book is about what I expected. I liked the story, but the writing was quite amateurish. But I like the idea of a band having a backstory in novel form. Really inventive idea. I also liked the beginning and the ending of this book quite a bit.