Reviews

Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb

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overquake's review

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relaxing slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated

2.0

beaktastic's review against another edition

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4.0

I did quite enjoy this book, although I did think it was a bit slow to get going and not much happened for the first half of the novel or so, or though I wasn't as bothered by this as some other reviewers seem to have been.

Assassin's Apprentice tells the story of Fitz, the young bastard of the Crown Prince Chivalry, who is suddenly taken to the Royal keep to be raised by the Royal family. At first Fitz struggles to fit in, but finds comfort in his special gift, the Wit, which allows him to bond and communicate with animals. But Fitz is soon whisked into court life and is asked by King Shrewd to train as an assassin and serve him that way. But there's more going on at court and in the Kingdom that will test Fitz...

I did like the development of Fitz, as he does grow throughout the novel and it did feel really natural. I quite liked Chade but I felt that we didn't really see or learn enough about him.

And I liked the way Hobb begins each chapter with a small piece of prose providing more detail about a certain aspect of the world or certain characters, to expand the world and story without bogging down the main prose too much.

I was at times really infuriated with some of the characters and Fitz, as sometimes it would be incredibly obvious to me what was going on or whatever and no one would realise for ages (or at all) -

Spoiler

for example, it was pretty obvious to me that Regal was going to be up to no good from the beginning and it kind of annoyed me that no one else realised it until the end but I suppose he was a prince and no one would expect that of a prince. It was also obvious what Galen did to Fitz regarding the Skill training and I found it annoying that no one else realized

.

I did also feel rather unsatisfied at the end. I mean, at the very end there was lots of drama and that was resolved in a good way, but overall I wasn't anticipating the end when it came really. I mean, a lot of things weren't really resolved regarding Regal and the Red Ship Raiders, although obviously that is setting things up ready for the rest of the trilogy.

So overall, I did enjoy this book, although I did feel it took awhile to get going and I was a little infuriated at times and felt rather unsatisfied by the end but I am looking forward to reading the next installment of the series.