Review: The Name of the Wind

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

So I'm mainly editing this now cause Rothfuss recently got announced as a stretch goal/likely additional writer for a game I'm really looking forward to (Torment: Tides of Numenera) and as my rating would suggest I kinda have mixed feelings about it. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing how he contributes to it, anyway.

But back to this book. This is mostly going off memory right now, but it wasn't actually that bad of a book (although I'm kinda glad goodreads suggests two stars = "it was ok" rather than bad). It's actually quite fun to read, and I'd recommend it if you're looking into fantasy series to pick up and have an interest in stories told by storytellers about stories and being semi-meta about it. That kind of stuff actually would appeal to me too. It's just...

Kvothe is too much of a Mary Sue. I'm probably repeating what dozens of other reviewers have already said, but I pretty much felt the same way about it by the end of the book. I don't know if it was the narrator or the setting or the story or all of the above but it felt like everyone in the universe of this book loves to heap praises on how mysterious Kvothe is, how heroic Kvothe is, how much of a fantastic child prodigy with a tragic childhood and future Kvothe is (almost like Batman except Batman's cooler, no contest). Even though he clearly does make mistakes sometimes and isn't perfect by any means, the way his story is framed, it all just feels too convenient for him. Even the times when he's just a poor kid wandering the streets looking for his next meal, and you're just waiting for when he'll rise above it all and become the hero he's bound to become- and then it happens just as expected. He gets his next big break and it's all upwards from there.

By the end of the book, I kinda felt like the fascination and intrigue about the guy just wore off on me, so I couldn't really take his present misery as seriously anymore. The writing and prose itself is great and all, but Kvothe as a character doesn't really jive with me the same way, so I don't feel as inclined towards reading more about him even though it's supposed to be a trilogy. That said, considering that Kvothe himself is the narrator, I think the later installments would benefit from further exploring the idea of his story being told to us as unreliable. I think it would make for a more substantial read.

With that said, I don't entirely doubt Rothfuss's abilities as a writer, so I guess I'll still look forward to reading his future works, including his contribution to Torment. Just hoping it gets better from here.