Reviews

Eldest by Christopher Paolini

fredthflyfly's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

bibliophilefrombirth's review

adventurous dark emotional tense

4.25

bittersweet_symphony's review against another edition

3.0

Builds nicely upon the previous book that did well in setting up the world for the reader. However, I found that as Paolini took the reader deeper into the training of Eragon as a rider, the more he lost me as a reader. In the training he dabbles into some heavy philosophical and theological topics. He only touches them on the surface, but the results he comes to were highly disagreeable. Using Elves as his most advanced or "perfect" people, they are the voice for most of these things. The wise elf training Eragon derides the idea of faith/belief in religion and hypocritically champions the "flawlessness" of analytical reason, empiricism, etc. My friend said it best, "what else did you expect from a boy who was home schooled and never went to college?" Ignoring this, it is a fun read and has a couple major twists toward the end of the book. It is a great accomplishment and a great narrative for such a young writer.

youngling80's review against another edition

4.0

 This was another hit amongst our family's bedtime reads. While some of the details were extensive and didn't seem entirely necessary to the plot, it never failed to be interesting. We had guessed the big twist at the end of this book, though it still made a compelling story.

I might come back and give a more comprehensive review later. 

kristofvw's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

fferraro87's review against another edition

adventurous emotional inspiring mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

toves_bokhylla's review

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious fast-paced

5.0

abra3326's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

lizzycatslibrary's review against another edition

1.0

Bah! As if I didn't hate this book enough just when I had gotten all my frustrations out Goodreads FAILED me in posting it! So now I have to recount once again why I hate this book!

Okay... here it goes. I tried to read this book for months... in fact... I believe I have been reading it for over a year now. I am only about half way through it... and I just cannot go on any farther. I wanted to like this book! I really did! I read the first one... which I thought was pretty bad... but thought maybe a second installment could redeem it. That was my first mistake. If the first one was bad you can pretty much figure the next one is going to be much the same. But whatever... I tried. It had dragons in it! Dragons are my thing! All Paolini had to do was present a semi-decent story for this one to rate up there... but it failed miserably. I cannot tear my eyes through this book or this series any longer. I am calling it a day and moving on to other books where my time might be more usefully spent.

I'm sorry Christopher... it just didn't do it for me.

Smell ya later.

mariealma's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0