This book isn’t bad. It also isn’t very good (pace Rothfuss fans). I came away from it feeling ambivalent: I didn’t hate it! I even liked some parts! But I also don’t care if I ever read the sequel or if the third book in the series is ever actually published. But I might read them?

It’s all very confusing.

Part of the problem is the blatant cribbing from Harry Potter. Fantasy writers are notorious and obvious borrowers: Jordan borrowed from Tolkien; Terry Brooks borrowed from Tolkien; Islington borrowed from both Tolkien and Jordan. It’s not unheard of. But to write a book in 2007 about a boy who discovers he is “special” and who is packed of to wizard school is...I mean....come on now.

(I say this as someone who has never and probably won’t ever read the Potter books.)

(I fully admit that a second part of the problem might be me: I went into this not realizing it was YA, which isn’t really my bag.)

Nevertheless, Rothfuss has an amazingly rabid fan base (check out the more than 3000 reviews—mostly 5 star—for Doors of Stone, the third volume in this series that, as of 2019, has gone unfinished and unpublished for nearly a decade) and you might be one of them, so don’t just take my word for it.