Reviews

Sorry in advance to my friends who like this book. I have many gripes with this book.

First, the writing of this book had enough errors in its grammar to pull me out of the story. There were several instances where I would have to reread a sentence due to a missing comma. This happens to me fairly often with what I read, but in this case, it was happening to me at least once a chapter. Further, I could have done without most of the jokes and innuendos. I made it very hard for me to take the main characters seriously, since it seems that everything out of their mouths was something a middle school boy would say. Most of the time, I was rolling my eyes at the dialogue, especially when it was a touch too modern, leaving it incongruous with the world I felt was being built. And why were there so many jokes about being overweight? I nearly dnf’d after being introduced to the character of piglet and reading the reasoning why. A really big hindrance of me enjoying this book at all was my brain absolutely disengaging whenever it came to an action scene or a scene that was supposed to be high in tension. I was never concerned for the characters, even though bad things seem to be happening to them all the time.

While I understand this book is supposed to be very DND coded, it felt like there was never a moment for “downtime“. Traditionally, plots in books have peaks and valleys, which makes the tension all the more heightened. However, these guys are just running into one potential disaster after another. I know that’s kind of the point, especially to showcase how bad off the world is, but it became grating sooner rather than later. The “twists” felt extremely obvious and predictable to me, and a lot of the plot points seemed convenient.

The way the world building was done had no immersion for me whatsoever. I was familiar with a lot of the creatures utilized, as a lot of them are pulled from mythology. But it felt as if they were there just to be there. There was little history about any of the ones introduced. I would have much preferred if they had been less monsters introduced and we just got a more in-depth look at some of them.

Lastly, the characters are very archetypal and can only be distinguished from each other by one characteristic. I always prioritize characters over any other aspect of a book, and not being able to connect to or care about the characters drove down my enjoyment. There was never a moment when I felt any empathy for our characters and any time they had “growth”, it seemed obvious.

Ultimately, this book just wasn’t for me.

frogjam's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional reflective tense medium-paced

4.5

classwizard's review against another edition

Go to review page

5.0

This shouldn't have made me cry. Did it? Yes. Yes, it did. On multiple occasions actually. There's just something so satisfying about old heroes kicking ass alongside new up-and-coming adventurers.

quentin_eddington's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

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

4.75

This is a highly imaginative adventure that kept me hooked from beginning to end.

More...