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ayoung92's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
sensational79's review against another edition
3.0
This book is a bit of filler. Way longer than needed for what it accomplishes. Lots of person growth for the main characters. As everyone converges and interacts the prejudicial undertones and just blatant statements are way more than necessary. We get it, there are darker people. The questions of if someone is painted is a bit much. The amount of time spent on the description of slanted eye is beyond logic I guess you gotta fill pages somehow.
rants_n_reads's review against another edition
adventurous
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
mtnielsen56's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
any_direction's review against another edition
4.0
The nostalgia is real here. Was I at the Brisingr midnight release party? Did I win a Brisingr hat that I wore until it turned from black to brown? Do I still own not only that hat, but also a Brisingr t-shirt despite the fact that I have not engaged with this series for over a decade? Yes to all the above. Now that you know that I am was a shameless Eragon fangirl, we can proceed.
This book is too long. Here are things that I do not care about: dwarf politics, how swords are made, battle gore, Roran. Here are things that I found interesting but could have been cut and no one would have noticed: spirits, nasty weather, Varden recruitment schemes. There were chapters here that could have been sentences. I like some reveling; there is an “I found interesting category” and I get that what’s on my don’t care about list is on someone else interesting list and vice versa. But like we could cut some stuff.
Okay, that gripe gone. I don’t know where or how Paolini gets his inspiration from, and per usual I’m not an authority on the topics I praise, but there’s interesting thoughts on war here. This is a book about ordinary people going to battle, and I can start to see how people go about justifying the atrocities of war. How there’s this push and pull between fighting for a just world and what the characters have to do to get it. There’s also something here about the impossibility of promises, as proposed by the book’s alternative title. It shows why we make promises in the first place, and what it costs to keep them.
I forgot a lot of this book. Two things I didn’t forget was my frustration with Razac and Katerina. Maybe it’s because it’s the opening scene, but it also might be because it makes me so angry. Having multiple human-like creatures in fantasy novels is sticky, like genuinely maybe the Razac have something inherently evil about them, and it’s a fantasy novel, we don’t have to consider the moral implications of killing them all off. But we get an explanation of why everything else is evil. We get this explanation for the Shades. Who are also represented by mostly a single individual, who does awful things. With the Razac there are no individuals. Eragon just knows that some of them were responsible for all the bad things in Carvahal, so the entire race must be destroyed. It doesn’t feel right, and maybe I would let it go if this was a series that wasn’t so interested in making space for questionable behavior. We make space for the urgals, who have massacred cities; tribes that demand you do physical injury to prove your worth; for elves who turn their backs on a world in need; a dragon who regularly has violent fantasies; Sloan, who is so angry that he puts all around him in mortal peril; Murtagh, who kills multiple world leaders; even Galbitorix is given some tragic explanation for his behavior. Not that Paolini says that any of this behavior is justifiable, but he explores why people do bad things and writes Eragon’s empathy as a strength. This contradiction bothers me, and it bothers me more that the it result in extinction.
I loved Katerina’s character in the first two books. The first time we see her, she’s standing up for Eragon. Then in book two we see her as a defiant woman who’s navigating maintaining a relationship with her father while trying to marry the man she loves. I had thought at one point that she could potentially end up being the third rider. Then in this book she’s a trope: a damsel in distress then, a worried house wife. I don’t mind a character in peril or a house wife, but there is nothing else to her character in this book apart from being motivation for Roran, and I’m so mad. Part of the reason, I’m so mad about Katrina is that Paolini shows us that she capable of writing female characters. He goes to such pains to write about so many other things; he could’ve written Katrina better. To be fair, the only thing more boring than Katerina’s lack of an arc is Roran. I don’t remember liking Roran, but I also don’t remember disliking every moment I spent with him as I did on this read through. It was all so bloody, and I don’t think that we get anything out of it that we don’t get from Eragon and Narsuada’s perspectives. Also, Eragon lies to them about Sloan, and I think that was an asshole move.
So this brings us to the other woman. I came here to be mad because of Katerina and because there’s a little beef to be had that Arya, Katerina, and Narsuada are all at some point in the series prisoners that mostly serves as a way to build up the men who fall in love with them. Very heteronormative, very internalized sexism. Get a new idea, Paolini. But here’s the thing, this is a book by, for, and about a boy coming of age. I’m not sure if it needs the worlds strongest cast of female characters, and yet there are so many woman in this book (Saphira, Arya, Narsuada, Katrina, Angela, Ronan just to name the highlights) and mostly they are fully-realized. This book passes the Bechdel test. Yes, these woman are traumatized, but it does not have to become their entire personality because they were all powerful woman to before that. No, the female rep isn’t perfect but this book had no reason to have as good female rep as it did and did it anyway without pandering. FANTASY AUTHORS NEED TO DO BETTER because this is what the MINIMUM level of female rep should look like, and instead I have to praise it.
Is anyone else mad that Gladr and Oromis leave just to end up dying a chapter later? Like that’s war I guess, but it feels a bit contrived.
Smattering of complements because I did genuinely have a good time with this book. There are some excellent scenes. Arya making a ship of grass, being in Gladr’s head as he dies (and his descriptions of Thorn), Eragon’s conversation with the urgal leader, the confrontation of the Monoa tree. There’s stuff here that’s good enough to make me forget that there are too many pages left. I hate Arya as Eragon’s crush; I am here for Arya as Eragon’s friend. I loved seeing two people have so much care and trust for each other. While the politics were dry, there was something here about the interests of different parties, and how each of the leaders makes their decisions. It comes out best in Narsuada’s chapters. Putting the Razac weirdness aside, I do think Eragon is a very empathic character and it’s comforting to see a character doing that mental calculus of trying to do what’s right, both because I want to believe that there are people who want to do what’s right and because overthinking is relatable.
Yes, I skipped Eldest. I don’t know if I’ll read it or not anytime soon. I’ve hated Paolini’s elves less I remembered, so maybe age it will have made it better. But the point of this exercise was to remember enough of the world to read Murtagh and mission accomplished. I’m reading that next, no one stop me!
This book is too long. Here are things that I do not care about: dwarf politics, how swords are made, battle gore, Roran. Here are things that I found interesting but could have been cut and no one would have noticed: spirits, nasty weather, Varden recruitment schemes. There were chapters here that could have been sentences. I like some reveling; there is an “I found interesting category” and I get that what’s on my don’t care about list is on someone else interesting list and vice versa. But like we could cut some stuff.
Okay, that gripe gone. I don’t know where or how Paolini gets his inspiration from, and per usual I’m not an authority on the topics I praise, but there’s interesting thoughts on war here. This is a book about ordinary people going to battle, and I can start to see how people go about justifying the atrocities of war. How there’s this push and pull between fighting for a just world and what the characters have to do to get it. There’s also something here about the impossibility of promises, as proposed by the book’s alternative title. It shows why we make promises in the first place, and what it costs to keep them.
I forgot a lot of this book. Two things I didn’t forget was my frustration with Razac and Katerina. Maybe it’s because it’s the opening scene, but it also might be because it makes me so angry. Having multiple human-like creatures in fantasy novels is sticky, like genuinely maybe the Razac have something inherently evil about them, and it’s a fantasy novel, we don’t have to consider the moral implications of killing them all off. But we get an explanation of why everything else is evil. We get this explanation for the Shades. Who are also represented by mostly a single individual, who does awful things. With the Razac there are no individuals. Eragon just knows that some of them were responsible for all the bad things in Carvahal, so the entire race must be destroyed. It doesn’t feel right, and maybe I would let it go if this was a series that wasn’t so interested in making space for questionable behavior. We make space for the urgals, who have massacred cities; tribes that demand you do physical injury to prove your worth; for elves who turn their backs on a world in need; a dragon who regularly has violent fantasies; Sloan, who is so angry that he puts all around him in mortal peril; Murtagh, who kills multiple world leaders; even Galbitorix is given some tragic explanation for his behavior. Not that Paolini says that any of this behavior is justifiable, but he explores why people do bad things and writes Eragon’s empathy as a strength. This contradiction bothers me, and it bothers me more that the it result in extinction.
I loved Katerina’s character in the first two books. The first time we see her, she’s standing up for Eragon. Then in book two we see her as a defiant woman who’s navigating maintaining a relationship with her father while trying to marry the man she loves. I had thought at one point that she could potentially end up being the third rider. Then in this book she’s a trope: a damsel in distress then, a worried house wife. I don’t mind a character in peril or a house wife, but there is nothing else to her character in this book apart from being motivation for Roran, and I’m so mad. Part of the reason, I’m so mad about Katrina is that Paolini shows us that she capable of writing female characters. He goes to such pains to write about so many other things; he could’ve written Katrina better. To be fair, the only thing more boring than Katerina’s lack of an arc is Roran. I don’t remember liking Roran, but I also don’t remember disliking every moment I spent with him as I did on this read through. It was all so bloody, and I don’t think that we get anything out of it that we don’t get from Eragon and Narsuada’s perspectives. Also, Eragon lies to them about Sloan, and I think that was an asshole move.
So this brings us to the other woman. I came here to be mad because of Katerina and because there’s a little beef to be had that Arya, Katerina, and Narsuada are all at some point in the series prisoners that mostly serves as a way to build up the men who fall in love with them. Very heteronormative, very internalized sexism. Get a new idea, Paolini. But here’s the thing, this is a book by, for, and about a boy coming of age. I’m not sure if it needs the worlds strongest cast of female characters, and yet there are so many woman in this book (Saphira, Arya, Narsuada, Katrina, Angela, Ronan just to name the highlights) and mostly they are fully-realized. This book passes the Bechdel test. Yes, these woman are traumatized, but it does not have to become their entire personality because they were all powerful woman to before that. No, the female rep isn’t perfect but this book had no reason to have as good female rep as it did and did it anyway without pandering. FANTASY AUTHORS NEED TO DO BETTER because this is what the MINIMUM level of female rep should look like, and instead I have to praise it.
Is anyone else mad that Gladr and Oromis leave just to end up dying a chapter later? Like that’s war I guess, but it feels a bit contrived.
Smattering of complements because I did genuinely have a good time with this book. There are some excellent scenes. Arya making a ship of grass, being in Gladr’s head as he dies (and his descriptions of Thorn), Eragon’s conversation with the urgal leader, the confrontation of the Monoa tree. There’s stuff here that’s good enough to make me forget that there are too many pages left. I hate Arya as Eragon’s crush; I am here for Arya as Eragon’s friend. I loved seeing two people have so much care and trust for each other. While the politics were dry, there was something here about the interests of different parties, and how each of the leaders makes their decisions. It comes out best in Narsuada’s chapters. Putting the Razac weirdness aside, I do think Eragon is a very empathic character and it’s comforting to see a character doing that mental calculus of trying to do what’s right, both because I want to believe that there are people who want to do what’s right and because overthinking is relatable.
Yes, I skipped Eldest. I don’t know if I’ll read it or not anytime soon. I’ve hated Paolini’s elves less I remembered, so maybe age it will have made it better. But the point of this exercise was to remember enough of the world to read Murtagh and mission accomplished. I’m reading that next, no one stop me!
theintrovertsbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
reflective
tense
slow-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? It's complicated
4.0
abbyxbrandt's review against another edition
adventurous
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.5
sandra4444's review against another edition
4.0
Efter omläsning lutar väl betyget egentligen mer åt 3 stjärnor, men då jag alltid har föredragit "Brisingr" framför "Eragon" (som jag givit 3 stjärnor) så avrundar jag uppåt och låter betyget vara kvar på 4 stjärnor.