The Name of All Things

This is an undeniably ambitious series. Here, in the second book, we are introduced to a completely different main character, with a new narrator construction. Whilst the first book took the form of an interrogation transcript, this one is more a series of stories told in tavern. The world is expanded and more stories are brought in, which intertwine with the first book in a pleasing way. I get a certain Malazan vibe with this interwoven story style (although the prose is very different). If anything, the prose has improved into this book, the scope of its story is slightly narrower and a lot of the heavy lifting on the world building front has already been done in the first book. This lets the room breath more and feel a little less rushed.

I am ultimately intrigued where this story is going, and thoroughly look forward to continuing!

I recently read the first book in this series and mentioned how chaotic and confusing it was. While most of the reviews for this sequel say this one is easier to follow, I had the opposite experience. I could not tell you what the full plot of this book was. I understood the bare bones, but I can not keep track of all of these different characters. I was constantly confused on who was a good and a bad guy, and that made it nearly impossible to discern what was happening.

All of that to say, I still really enjoyed this book. I don't know if it's just the interesting, diverse cast of characters, or if it's the narrators that made it fun for me. But even though I could hardly follow the plot, I still found myself enraptured with it. I'm giving it 3 stars solely because it is just so confusing to me. I didn't enjoy this one as much because of it. While the first one was confusing, I still at least could differentiate the characters and follow the plot, albeit loosely. This one, I couldn't differentiate any of the characters besides the main cast of like 4 characters. Everyone else was a blur to me so I couldn't keep track of what anyone's motivations were or even who everyone was. My confusion could be because I listened to the audiobook instead of reading a physical copy, or it could just be that my comprehension skills weren't up to snuff while I was reading. Either way, I can't give it more than 3 stars since I couldn't even really tell you what it was about.

Overall, I do still recommend this book to any epic fantasy fans. Most reviews say this book is easier to follow, so I'm definitely in the minority with my confusion.

TW: assault, blood, bones, child abuse, death, demons, fire, gore, homophobia, misgendering, misogyny, physical abuse, poisoning, pregnancy, sexism, rape, slavery, violence, war

Why. Just, why. A billion pages of yawning backstory/flashbacks, 50 pages of actual stuff furthering the plot from Book 1. I am so disappointed. I won't be bothering with book 3 :(