A review by theinkwyrm
Murtagh by Christopher Paolini

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

3.5

As someone who considers The Inheritance Cycle series one of my favorites, I was both excited and apprehensive about this book and after finishing this, I still think both of those emotions are warranted. Let me start by saying that I am so bummed because I was all ready to really love this book, but I don’t just think that this is as good as the original Inheritance series (but that might be because I prefer Eragon as a character to Murtagh). I also think that this should be read as a companion novel rather than a continuation of the original series, by which I mean that if you have really good memories of the original series, you might want to skip this book because it really did change how I look back on the first four books in a not super great way. That being said, this wasn’t a terrible book and it still had that very bingeable reading quality that the first four books did, it just felt like it was trying to do too much, particularly in the last 1/3ish of the book where it felt like 10 pounds of plot in a 5 pound bag. While Murtagh and Thorn end up with a lot of great character growth, the plot has so many loose threads that it feels almost guaranteed that this is the beginning of a spin off series (which Paolini acknowledges and basically confirms in the acknowledgments section at the end). I’m honestly not sure if I’ll continue reading more books from Murtagh’s POV in the future.
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