A review by herceia
Fractal Noise by Christopher Paolini

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

The only reason I finished this was bc I love Paolini as an author. The Inheritance Cycle is my favorite series. However, I would have stopped at about a third of the way through if I didn't have this weird loyalty to him. I almost stopped anyway at several points beyond that. I gave it a 1 because the story was actually pretty interesting to me when the main character, Alex, wasn't in his woe-is-me mood (which was very often. Too often. Almost unbearably often.). 

My main complaint with this book is how utterly upset and despondent Alex is for the entire book. We get it, your wife died and you're sad. You're really about to make your attitude everyone else's problem? I also have complaints about the character of the people he's traveling with. At this point, you think they'd send a better-vetted group out on missions like this. 

The struggles in the book were very real, but I was almost too distracted by Alex's feelings to feel any compassion for any of their situations. That was frustrating during the read bc I really wanted to feel for them, but just couldn't. 

This book is a close look at humans in extreme and unknown conditions, and for that, the book is a 2. I was missing anyone or any thing, thought, or feeling to root for. I could have had about fifty pages less of self-pity. 
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