The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss: Book Review

My Review

My Rating: 4/5

The Name of the Wind Book Review – Spoiler Free

I almost didn’t finish this fantasy book. About 40 pages into The Name of the Wind I was bored and didn’t want to read any more. However, I always give a book at least 100 pages to prove itself.

Around 45 pages in, the story improved dramatically.

Since finishing The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, I can see why the first section is there and I appreciate it, but it’s not written nearly as well as the rest of the book.

I only have one major issue with this book: Denna

It is because of this that my rating for The Name of the Wind isn’t 5/5. Denna. I hate her. Her character is dull, every scene with her in it is dull, and every time Kvothe mentions her I am bored.

Because Denna is a such a huge part of Kvothe’s story, I couldn’t give The Name of the Wind 5 stars.

Kvothe himself is brilliant

I have seen many reviews complaining about him: he’s good at everything; he is invincible; he is arrogant.

Kvothe is flawed dramatically by his arrogance, however his ‘genius’ and incredible ability to be amazing at everything is fun. I like to read about characters who are fun.

We as the reader can drift through the complexity of the world through Kvothe’s eyes making it so much more enjoyable spending time there.

This is a fantasy book so it makes sense that the main character would be fantastical.

The writing is poetry

Not a word goes to waste (except for anything to do with Denna but let’s skip over that). I believe that The Name of the Wind would have never been so popular if the writing wasn’t this good.

It’s not a complicated plot – it hardly has a plot at all (due to being only the beginning of a story) – and many of the characters are not fully-formed, however the writing draws you in and you can’t stop yourself from flicking over the pages.

One more thing

I can see huge elements of Earthsea in this world and that’s fantastic. Patrick Rothfuss is giving life to elements of the world of Earthsea, created by Ursula K. le Guin, that I wanted to see more of.

The magic system is mystical yet has solid rules that are complex, and the ‘magic school’ trope works a dream.

This is a fantastic book and will be a great read for anyone who is a fan of the fantasy genre.