Reviews with content warning for War - The Name of the Wind

Reviews tagging 'War'

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

9 reviews

danasaur's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious sad tense 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

5.0

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zeldazonks's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

2.5

After reading Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, I decided I wanted to get into more fantasy books this year, as it's a genre I haven't really read since I was younger. I'd heard a lot of buzz about this and thought it would be a good start.

From that perspective, I think it's definitely a reasonable introduction to fantasy, the world building and lore are rich enough to be intriguing and interesting (the mythology is probably my favourite part of this book) but without being confusing or overwhelming.

Overall though the story didn't really live up to the hype I'd heard. I found the MC kind of insufferable and basically enjoyed the book in spite of him I think. There was also a thread of misogyny throughout the book which seemed to be a vehicle for the MC to give himself a pat on the back for thinking he's slightly less misogynistic than everyone else? The female characters' voices felt very samey and flat for me. I didn't find it very believable that the biggest female character has clearly known a hard life and is street smart, yet unwittingly does something that leaves her out for the count when it comes to an action scene.

I wasn't really expecting for so much of this book to be following the MC at university, which I think would have put me off if I'd known in advance. So the story kind of lagged for me a bit there but I still enjoyed it enough to continue and see where it went.

In spite of my gripes, I did enjoy the book overall and I'm definitely interested to read the sequel (and perhaps the third book when/if it gets released!) I think it's a case where I went in expecting a 4/5 star read based on the hype and actually I thought it was just pretty good.

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robotfanclub's review

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adventurous emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

After multiple readings, I find this book to be more about the process of reading it than the grander world it builds or the story it tells. It’s a story about stories, and it uses the medium of stories to great effect. But if you’re here for a complete series and care about the conceptual nature of the lore… maybe go somewhere else. It’s an amazing experience and wonderfully crafted and I don’t know if I’ve ever enjoyed reading a book quite as much as this.

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nortsapa's review

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adventurous dark 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? It's complicated

2.75

this book really hasn’t aged well? the writing around poverty & music makes me feel like the author isn’t very familiar with the lived experiences of poor folk & musicians (“if you’ve never been xyz you wouldn’t understand” is said a lot) and it has a very j.j. abrams “mystery box” plot style. it prefers being totally unpredictable to having a flowing plot with foreshadowing and the like. many offhand phrases are repeated over and over again (take a shot every time “times being what they are” is said)

i don’t like school settings and i wasn’t really prepared for us to spend 75% of this book in a school, or to encounter quite so much patriarchy. another review says the protagonist is a mary sue and i very much agree.

there’s lots of different fictional races, which i presume is why people say this cast is diverse, but it’s more like there’s russians & jews, the french & italians, the british, and romani people. as a jew, i always feel off-put by kinds of oppression/microaggressions faced by some groups in here, and by the fact that there’s a ‘money race’ for lack of a better term.

at many points the book was a chore to get through, and i was disappointed by the lack of a clean ending. also, lots of grammar/spelling/math errors in my edition?

overall i won’t be recommending it to anyone myself, but it’s a genre staple and fun to talk about with friends. definitely check the content warnings area before embarking.

Content Warnings