The Name of the Wind

I will say that this book was compelling, in that I for some reason wanted to keep reading it until I was finished. Which I did. And then it ended, and I learned that I have to now read another one to find out where the story is going and as it turns out I don't really want to, so I'll probably just find a synopsis of it somewhere on the internet and read that instead.

I found this book boring (though compelling...it makes sense!). The main character is good at everything. Nothing particularly surprising happened - at no point did I feel like I'd just read something really cool or new or interesting. Though this isn't necessarily a criticism of this book, I personally am entirely bored by fantasy set in the faux-middle ages, and particularly fantasy set in the faux-middle ages that maintains middle ages gender roles. Yes, there were strong female protagonists, but they were few and far between and there was also a line that went something like “call a spade a spade but always call a whore a lady”. Because it's polite. Anyway, none of the characters impressed me too much as standing out, though I'd probably read a spin-off about Bast and the fae.

All in all, I read the whole book and it was fine. I'm vaguely interested to find out what happens in the next book, but not enough to read it.