Bastion

It's a good thing that I didn't realize this is the same author that wrote The Path of Flames. You can see how much I hated that book in my review, and why, but I'll admit that Tucker has improved as an author since then. In this one I actually cared about many of the side characters, even liking a couple of them much more than the main character, and strong female characters were given real reasons for being strong, not just “because I said so, girl power!” like in Path.

The main character, Scorio, is pretty annoying most of the book, but it is at least reasonably understandable, and he does actually achieve a decent level of growth by the end. I would have preferred he earn that growth while being less annoying, but it wasn't enough to make me stop reading at least.

Usually I'm a sucker for school stories, you know like Harry Potter etc., but the school stuff was way less interesting than the rest of the book, and I really wasn't a fan of the flip-flopping from school/not school/school/etc. Sure, mixing things up is always better than just becoming another clone of a popular series, so I can let that go, but the school stuff was really just not that interesting at all so it felt like a huge step backward whenever it came up.

Speaking of school stories. These are adults that are reborn countless times into adult bodies, just without memories. You mean to tell me they forgot about hooking up too? There is only one pair that even vaguely talks about liking each other...in a past life.

One rather large knock I have is that the book seemed waaaaay longer than it needed to be. Way too much repetition of thought and action, at least for me. I know plenty of people love that, but less is more in my eyes. And while I'm not one that cares about book length in particular, or authors milking readers for money, it felt like a wasted opportunity for the author not to cut the book in half at the massively obvious cut point almost exactly halfway through. There's a hugely significant moment at like 48-52% or so that could have easily been the end of book one. I was kind of shocked when I got there and it didn't end.

Finally, I will be upset if Nox doesn't make a return in later books.