13. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
This is the first in a proposed trilogy called the Brainkiller Kingkiller Chronicles. This first one was nearly 700 pages and no Kings are yet dead. I have NO IDEA why this book is so popular. It is irritating as hell.
When you get to 80 per cent of a really long book and come across the phrase "her smile was like the sun peeping from behind a cloud" honestly you want to inflict some pain on the guy.
He invents a whole new religion and has everyone using oaths like "Tehlu blacken!" and you go along with it, but then after 600 pages of this he suddenly has someone say "it's a goddamn dragon", making an utter waste of time of the whole enterprise and your life and time.
At every point where something should happen, or something significant should be said, it is clear he does not actually have the writing skills to tackle it, so he just glosses over things. "I won't tell you what our conversation was, but it was earth shattering and deep" "I won't tell you the song she sang, it's not your business but it was so wonderful" and "I don't know what I'm going to do next so I'm just going to pawn something/sell something/buy something/borrow money/buy a lute/break lute/buy new lute/break that lute/borrow money"AAAARGGGGH.
The main character comes from a tribe of people that are apparently alternatively known for both lying and honesty, depending on the requirements of the story. It has some good writing and turns of phrase, but it all amounted to unforgivable smartarsery in the face of so much smug dullness and stupidity.
I finished it but I felt like giving myself a sharp slap at the end. I did at first enjoy the promise of a rich fantasy world with an intriguing story, but he abruptly abandoned the kernel of an idea he had and embarked on a long willy-waving coming of age tale that was Harry Potter-esque with a lute in place of a plot, and instead of any believable female characters, a lute, and in place of Quidditch, a lute-off, and in place of adventure, losing a lute, playing a lute, buying a lute, losing a lute.
I apologise, no one needs to read all that, it's sent me a little crazy, and I'm just getting it out. I have so much more I could rant about too! Did I mention it was nearly 700 pages? The sequel is around 1100 pages long. I mean come on, you're not bloody Tolstoy. But I need to move on. On now to Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers.