Senne
There are actually some really good parts in this book and kudos for SJM for writing this in her teens. There is an interesting overarching story, a world that I'm excited to maybe explore more, different realms and the most surprising for me: there even seems to be a lot of history in this world.
But that was sadly only 10% of the story. Everything I found interesting was glossed over to give more attention to the ridiculous romance and this so called "world-renowned assassin".
This is a great novella, that is quick to read but punches you right in the gut. In only 50 pages Andrew Watson writes a really good character arc in a great new expansion on the worldbuilding of Harbinger of Justice.
You can get it for free, but the look and luxurious touch of the hardcover edition is amazing!
“We humans do not understand compassion. In each moment of our lives, we betray it. Aye, we know of its worth, yet in knowing we then attach to it a value, we guard the giving of it, believing it must be earned. Compassion is priceless in the truest sense of the word. It must be given freely."
I liked All the Lovers in the Night, but this novella was really not for me. It has a ridiculous amount of unnecessary graphic violence and the dialogue is weird and unrealistic.
I skipped the parts I didn't like and then came to the conclusion that there wasn't much left.
DNF
I wanted to like it because I think the story can be interesting, but I really don't need to read about a teenage boy's erection and odd sexual references.
Strange choices are made in this book.
The Gathering Storm made me fall in love with The Wheel of Time all over again! Sanderson did an amazing job in taking it over and kept Jordans voice, while at the same time putting enough of himself in there as well.
It sadly also makes the obvious criticism of the previous books stand out even more. The Gathering Storm had way better pacing, way more emotional impact and had a constant flow moving forward.
I loved every story arc and couldn't stop rooting for every single character.
This is my favorite book, so far, and I can't wait for the last 2. Only 1900 pages to go before this journey comes to end.
3,5/5
The audiobook is a big step up from the physical copy of book 1 that I read. The narrator does an amazing job!
I still don't know what I think about this serie. Some parts are really awesome, but other parts are boring. There is too much repetitiveness for me and I'm more interested in the underlying world building, conflicts, ... then in all the fighting that is happening.
There also seems to be less humour in this book than in DCC.
I will finish this serie at one point. It's just not high up on my list.
This was a great book to start a big serie! It did however really felt like a first book in the beginning. The story develops slowly and focusses only on two main characters. The ending however, was absolutely amazing!
I'm really curious to see where the story will go.
This is a difficult book to rate for me.
I loved some aspects of it, like the world building, some characters and the epicness of the story. However, the page count doesn't feel justified and although they are some important themes in the book, I was never fully emotional invested in it.
I usually don't give this low of a rating, but I was so disappointed by this book. It really didn't live up to the expectations. The blurb promised me a whole other story, since a big part of it actually isn't about the main character at all.
The characters felt really flat and the whole book was pretty much a cliché. Therefore I didn't have any emotional connection with the story, while that seemed to be the whole point of it.
There were things that I absolutely loved about this book and it had the potential to be an easy 5 star read.
However, I really disliked the completely unnecessary age gap and repetitive writing. I'm also still scarred from sjm's mating bonds and this was unfortunately also used in this book.
Queen Amid Ashes really was Sun Eater 2.5. The story takes place between Howling Dark and Demon in White and also follow Hadrian with the well known first-person narration.
While The Lesser Devil felt like an action packed side step, this felt more like a must read addition to the main story. There are nice elements that deeper the world building and Hadrian has some small, but important, character development.
Ashes of Man takes some time to build and the pacing felt a little bit strange at some points, but I was invested (as always) from page 1. Ruocchio's writing impresses me again and again and draws me completely into the story.
The emotional impact of the last 150 pages was amazing and made me hold my breath at different moments.
A masterpiece yet again!
What can you say after you finish a serie with over 4 million words... The journey has come to an end and it was a wild ride with lots of highs, but also some lows.
I personally enjoyed this last book and the ending! However, it is very plot driven and some battle scenes felt useless for me. There is constantly so much happening (which off course makes it really epic) that you get an overload at some point.
It would be more of a 4 star, but rating it 5 because of the overall journey! I will miss Rand Land a lot.
I will definitely need to process it all and look some things up in the wiki.
This is yet another great book in the serie, but left me a bit conflicted at the same time. Sanderson had the difficult job to tie up a lot of loose ends and it's when you read this book that you realize just how many of them there are. This means that this book sometimes focusses on boring characters that don't really matter or world building elements that were forgotten for 8 books.
However, there are many genius moments that made me hold my breath and some of those loose ends were really satisfying to see tied up. Everything is set up nicely for, what can't be anything other than, a grand and spectacular finale.
I'm impressed how Mandel injects so much themes and different explorations of humanity in only 250 pages. It's beautiful written and reflective.
The science fiction part is weak, but that isn't the point of this book in my opinion.
OBAF is a great debut novel. It's highly inspired by lots of classic, but also other modern, fantasy books, but it never bothered me.
The pacing was really great and the world building was slow and steady. I think this book can speak to a lot of people, also those that are not familiar with fantasy.
Characters felt realistic and the small changes in POV definitely added to the story.
I really thought this was going to be a 4 or 5 star review, but in the end I couldn't give it that.
I loved what Erikson did with the world building. It's obvious that he constructed an amazing and elaborate world. Erikson created a great atmosphere in this book and I'm impressed how fast-paced this was. There is something happening at every single page.
However, I got really frustrated with the needless complexity as the story progressed. So the world building is both a pro and con for me. There were way too many pov's, races, gods, ... I don't immediately dislike complex books, but I feel like the confusion that was created didn't add to the story at all.
