Patrick Rothfuss is a fresh wind blowing into the Fantasy genre anyhow, where tropes have all but replaced original writing for decades now. This he doesn't do by "reinventing" the genre, but by going back to the roots: examining how Fantasy relates to myth-making in in culture, and then telling a myth-in-the-making in his Kingkiller Chronicle.

The Slow Regard of Silent Things is a "spin-off" from the Kingkiller Chronicle, and a departure from both the protagonist, Kvothe, and from this myth-making exercise. In it, the focus is on Auri, a strange girl that Kvothe finds living underneath the university, and it is a look at her world through her eyes.

The result is a heartbreakingly empathetic look at a mentally ill person's world. Though, after reading this book, it'll probably feel uncomfortable thinking of Auri as "mentally ill".

Make no mistake, in our world, Auri would be diagnosed with... I don't know what. I'm no psychiatrist. But I can recognize obsessive behaviour, and I can recognize that Auri doesn't function in the normal world, which is one of those indicators psychiatrists will use to classify someone as ill. It's also the reason she lives underneath the university: there, she can interpret the world as she wants, and doesn't have to conform to other people's expectations. In our modern world, Auri would be found in a psychiatric ward. In a Fantasy world, her only choice is isolation.

But Auri doesn't suffer from this, precisely. She is lonely, and appreciates Kvothe - perhaps even loves him. Still, her world, explained in her own terms, makes sense and allows her to survive because she understands it, and it's the "normal" world that is scary and confusing.

The entirety of this novella describes her navigating her world in preparation for meeting with Kvothe, an event described in the Kingkiller Chronicles. She forages for gifts, finds food, explores parts yet undiscovered. She experiences the underbelly of the university as a living, breathing entity that she sometimes has to avoid, sometimes placate, but which is largely either indifferent or benevolent towards her.

That's all you're going to read. There is not much plot to speak of, not much character development - unless you view her world as a character, and your exploration of it through Auri's eyes as development. As you learn about how she views the world, you begin to understand this strange girl, and all her weirdness becomes... well, still weird, but at the same time utterly relatable. You were a little bit like that as a child. You might not learn in this book why an adult girl would still be like that, but you can imagine that something breaking happened to her.

I'm not sure whether Rothfuss meant to portray a mentally ill/in-need-of-support person here, or just wanted to explore the character as she existed in his head. But the result is a profoundly personal and empathetic exploration of a character that manages to stand in for that really odd person you might notice if you pay attention, like the lady who lives out of the plastic bags in her shopping trolley at Munich airport.

And because of that, this book transcends any trappings of genre or relation to the Kingkiller Chronicle it might have, and is "just" one of the best things I've read in my life.