My Expressions

The legendary hero in hiding, Kvothe, agrees to tell the real story of his life to the famous biographer, Chronicler, and the novel steps back in time to Kvothe’s childhood. The story takes 3 days to narrate. And there are 3 books in the series. The third of which has not yet been published. Each book follows the narration of one day. The third book has not yet been published.

Cons:

A lot of people despise the main character, Kvothe. And, honestly, even though I personally don’t hate him, I can understand the reason behind this. Kvothe, at times, is just perfect. He sometimes doesn’t seem like a human. In the story, he’s shown as a prodigy, a genius. He’s the best dueler, best actor, best musician, fastest learner, the cleverest boy, he has an excellent memory, and he can learn a whole language in just one day (for reference, I have been learning a language for almost a year now and I am on the elementary level)! The reason people hate him the most is that he’s really arrogant about these facts. Then there is the fact that in the story, he confesses that he was constantly spreading rumors about himself in the past to bolster his reputation. This makes the readers doubt his storytelling. They wonder if he is doing the same thing in the present. Now, as I said, I agree with these reasons, but I still love Kvothe’s character. And I’m going to tell you why in the Pros section.

There is another con that I do agree with. Even with his wits and cleverness, Kvothe is terrible with money. More often than not, he gets a significant amount of silver coins (talents in the story’s currency system), and he states how long he could survive with that amount, maybe even pay his school fees for multiple terms, and then promptly wastes it on things he doesn’t need.

Pros:

Kvothe, even though he seems to be perfect, has his own set of flaws. And those are his arrogance, his pride and self-respect, and his too much curiosity. Plus, one issue that is very focused upon in the books is that Kvothe was really poor. And I mean really poor. He is always shown to struggle to pay his own fees. Until the end of the second book, that is. He’s shown to be forced to borrow money from someone and give a drop of his blood in collateral (which is really dangerous according to the story’s magic system).

And now to the other pros. For one thing, the writing style is beautiful (doubly so when you consider that this is Patrick Rothfuss’s first book ever). It might take a few chapters to get used to it. But after that, you start to love it. When I was reading this, I had a hard time putting it down. And I was always reading it whenever I had time. Its world is so vast and wondrous that, at first, it fascinates you, but after that, you become obsessed with it.

The characters are also written wonderfully. As I already said, I like the main character very much. But even the minor characters are so detailed that you always love to read more about them. There isn’t a single character in the entirety of the two books that I think is boring.

Patrick Rothfuss pays a lot of attention to small details. All over the series, there are small details that are only mentioned one or two times but can be really important later. And I always feel like I have to remember it for later. But then I get lost in the pages once again and completely forget about it until it crops up again and surprises me.

Conclusion:

Everything said, my rating for this book is 5 stars.
Because it deserves it. Honestly, I think it deserves much more than that. And I would have given a 100 stars if I could have.

However, I think the second book, “The Wise Man’s Fear” is more for higher age groups. Now, I know that I am a 12-yr old and I could read it. But I am a fairly advanced reader (fairly, not very), but if you’re a beginner (or intermediate) reader, as most of my age group is, I don’t think you should read the second book. You can still enjoy the first book, though.

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