I really want to like fantasy as a genre, but these books are too damn long.

Hit a bit of a reading slump through this one, and I do think the length played a part; I didn't push myself to read as quickly as I normally do because I knew it was always going to take me longer to finish this one, so why rush? Which is a shame, because the prose is written well, the dialogue flowed naturally and I was getting pretty invested in the worldbuilding that was introduced at all the right parts and in the right amounts. But I can't ignore the fact that whenever I picked this book up to pick up where I left off I had a sense of... I think resignation is too strong of a word, but the fact that I considered it should be telling on its own.

It was a funny-yet-serious book with memorable scenes and that wrapped up neatly while still allowing for an obvious segue into a sequel (which has not yet been written at the time of this review). I just wish that maybe a quarter or even a third of this book was taken out to slim it down, particularly the bits where a Chekov's Gun scenario is clearly being set up to go off later (which happened a few times).