Book List 2 (2024)
The Eye of the World
Author: Robert Jordan
Length: 30h
Listened On: Libby
Started On: 12/2
Finished On: 12/15
Rating (Of 5): 3
Narrator: 5/5 Hell yea! Michael Kramar is back! (And Kate Reading... but oh well) and what is neat is his voice is distinctly different than in the Stormlight and Mistborn books. It's good to be back.
Romance: 3.5/5 There's pining and it's a touch annoying but nothing overtly romantic/sexually charged. What is really annoying and reason why it's a pretty low score is the pining that there is makes no sense. Nynaeve and Lan made no sense whatsoever. Nynaeve is bitching and difficult this whole time and Lan hasn't given her a second look then all of a sudden she wants him? What?
Magic System: 2/5 There really isn't anything particularly interesting here. Some basic run of the mill magic. The only couple of things I found interesting was the Blight and the Ways, since that ida of corrupted area is a cool/fun concept (It's my favorite act in BG3 and I love cursed areas in Okami). Otherwise this is pretty standard fantasy with mild magic system.
Characters: 2/5 Nobody is interesting at all. They all are at best boring, but often are annoying/unlikable. Nyneave spends most of the time being bitchy for no reason. Mat is so fucking annoying I just wanted him to be pushed off a cliff. He is constnatly causing issues. He is constantly causing problems in the hunt for treasure. He is just WILDLY unlikable. Nobody else really has any real substance. Perrin had the potential of being cool because of his wolf connection but he is just whining about it the whole time for literally no reason.
Favorite Character: The wolves?
Second Favorite Character: Maybe Elyas?
Least Liked Character: Nyneave
Notes: A lot of this story follows very closesly to the story of Lord of the Rings. There are a TON of similarities. Not just character types but story beats including but not limited to an attack of the home location pushing the main characters to have to go on their adventure, situations they encounter, locations they travel, etc. This would be fun tbh if it wasn't done so, well... poorly. I don't car about any of thes people, they are all whiny babies for basically all of it. They are continually complaining about and being paranoid about Aes Sedai despite one saving their lives constantly. Perrin is complaining about being a wolfbrother despite there being no clear reason why that is a problem, especially since the wolves are perfectly intelligent and helped save his ass. What this book's main issue though is the endless amount of unnecessary exposition. Every chapter there seems to be a pause in everything that is happening to focus on someone's dream, or someone telling a story, or someone giving a long drawn out explination of something. It's confusing more than a few times because they go on and on, and its easy to forget you aren't in the 'real world' timeline. Heck, there was even one point near the begining that there is a violent freaking mob who just stop in their tracks because the person they're being a violent mob about decided to give a long drawn out story. This isn't a bad book, and I'll keep trying this series. But at the moment I'm in it for the vibes, not the story.
The Great Hunt
Author: Robert Jordan
Length: 27h
Listened On: Libby
Started On: 12/15
Finished On: 12/18
Rating (Of 5): 2
Narrator: 5/5 Honestly I'm not sure if I've just gotten used to her or have since heard others who show how good she is in comparison but I've gotten to actually love Kate Reading's parts. The weird upturn that was present for all of WoK and some of WoR seems to be not present in any other books. She still suffers from not being able to do men very well, but in reality it isn't too much worse then men having limited range for female characters. And even then she still makes those men different and you can tell who she's voicing (usually) which is a lot better than another book mentioned in Book List Part 1.
Romance: 1.5/5 There is love triangle bullshit in full swing. I gave it an extra 0.5 only because there is no smut.
Magic System: 2.5/5 Still nothing really interesting. There are some cool ideas. Near parallel worlds. Evil entities. Etc. But ultimately still pretty bland. It's not a bad magic system, necessarily. It's more LotR style where it's baked into the universe more then being flashy like in the Cosmere.
Characters: 1/5 I honestly like practically nobody. Rand is acting endlessly stupid. "I won't be used" and blah blah over and over again. Like bro, it's not being used. You have a destiny. It might suck but you're in it now and covering your years and closing your eyes won't help you. Not to mention his obsession with the obviously evil Celese. Nyneave is overall a lot better than the last book but she's still ultimately a bitch. She's so bent on making Moiraine 'pay' for.... what? It isn't her fault what's happening. Most of the rest of the characters have practically no substance or aren't mentioned much in this book.
Favorite Character: Egwene
Second Favorite Character: Elayne
Least Liked Character: All of the Sul'dam
Notes: Honestly this book was realllly testing my DNF levels. Like... The storyline is fine, but the characters are almost all so wildly annoying. The thing that's getting to me more than how annoying the main characters are, is just.... NONE of the 'good' guys (meaning the people against the big bad evil guy) are, well... good. Like, yea it's great to have morally gray characters fighting against the enemy. It's very real to have multiple groups of people fighting against one 'evil' but also against each other. But shit, man... one faction of 'good' guys are torturing innocent people. One faction is extremely cruel, vile slave owners. One faction has a subset of their people hunting down and destroying men well before they ever become a threat to anyone. It's just... nobody is good. And the worst part of that is nobody is getting what they deserve over it! The crazy white cloaks are still tortuing innocent people. The slave owning peices of shit are still kidnapping women and treating them like furniture. It's horrible. The few people who haven't shown actual evil actions and are also fighting against the bad guy are generally clueless or otherwise unlikable. I'm very close to DNFing this series but I want to push through to get to the ones at the end that Sanderson took over. A lot of these issues likely can't really be changed by him but hopefully he can intruduce some things that are a bit more satisfying. I'll continue to book 3..I am interested in some parts, but man, it's a struggle. I'll do a few books first before returning to this series.
Yumi and the Nightmare Painter
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Length: 15h
Listened On: Hoopla
Started On: 12/21
Finished On: 12/23
Rating (Of 5): 5
Narrator: 5/5 Usual Kramer and Reading. Both amazing as usual. Though Kramer uses the same voice he does for Syl from the Stormlight Archive so that kinda was weird at times.
Romance: 5/5 This has more romance then most other of his books, he even pointed out he did that on purpose because of his wife. But it was done very naturally. Seeing the relationship grow felt much more natural than some other relationships in the Cosmere.
Magic System: 4/5 This magic system is cool. I honestly don't know how much I would call it a magic system though, more of a world build which is why its 4 instead of a straight 5. It's not got the same thing like allomancy or surgebinding but the entire world build and lore is super neat.
Characters: 5/5 All of the characters here were amazing. This was another one narrated by Hoid which was fantastic though he didn't have anything to do with the story this time unlike in Tress. (Poor man was once again sidelined though with something going stupidly wrong lol) Painter was an interesting protagonist and just seemed... normal. Nothing special in a good way. Yumi was lovable, especially as she began to open up about the life she could have. The people surrounding Yumi at first were assholes, especially Yumi's Ward... but then you learn the truth and I genuinly felt so very sad at the very end. Though they finally got to all rest it was still heartbreaking. It was really cool to see the Cryptid that Hoid had bound to and seeing how unique she is. She kinda reminds me of MeLan. The lowest point in characters would probably be Painter's "friends". The reason they were so cruel to him was such a bullshit reason. Like, not as in the writing is bad but they're just shallow POS. I'm glad Yumi called them out. Like... they talk shit about him constantly and outcast him.... because THEY didn't get what they wanted. They didn't think for a second that maybe, just maybe, staring at a fucking wall was perhaps not the sign of someone just fucking off and maybe the sign of someone hurting. They're shitty friends and shitty people.
Favorite Character: Painter (Or Hoid if you count him)
Second Favorite Character: Yumi
Least Liked Character: Painters 'friends'
Notes: Okay like... if you told me that the base of this world was actually taken from Doctor Who I would 1000% believe you. Like holy shit, this world is EXACTLY what you'd find in Doctor Who. The history if it all is horrifying and amazing all at once. Brandon has a hell of a way to make a horror concept in a non-horror story. The idea that the scholars revealed this amazing machine that would help the planet and sustain energy, which is a great cause, then in a great ceremonial day they flipped a switch and immediately trigger a complete and total mass extinction of basically everything on the planet is just.... holy shit, man. That is a horrifying thought. Everyone's body's ceasing to be and their souls being turned into just a cloud of death after just a simple flip of the switch, which happens so quickly they can't stop it. The concept is genuinly beyond horrifying, it's some crazy horror scenerio in my opinion. To just flip a switch and cause the immediate dissintagration of everything, not even something tangible like bombs. It's like the final flash of a nuke, but without anything before or after. And the machine? I don't know why but when Yumi confronted the machine it was genuinly some sort of messed up scene too. This machine that's been going for thousands of years, endlessly, the thing perpetuating everything, an unthinking, uncaring robot that caused all of it and continues to pull it along. That is absolutely something that Doctor Who would have. The rest of it, like the parts of the planet that are now inhabited, was a neat touch. I didn't mind the technology in this because it felt a little more fantastical in it's own way and it wasn't a preestablished fantasy world, like Mistborn and Stormlight, so I didn't mind the vehicles and equivelant of a tv. Honestly this was just a very enjoyable book from start to finish.
I will say that it was somewhat humerous. I was finishing the book on the way home, since I was almost finished and it was my last day before vacation, and I hear the word "Epilogue" and I loudly said, "What?!" in the parking lot on the way to my car. I knew that it would end happily, and Brandon's Epilogues are just final chapters properly finishing the story as opposed to other books that the epilogue more gives an overview of how things go after the story. So luckily I needn't have worried.
(Honerable Mention)
Tress and the Emerald Sea (Graphic Audio)
As this is not a new book and it is so soon after the last listen I will not re-review this. I will only review the narration.
Length: 10h
Listened On: Hoopla
Started On: 01/04
Finished On: 01/05
Narrator: 5/5 This was the graphic audiobook with multiple people voicing the characters and some mild music and sound effects. It was honestly fantastic. The person who played Hoid was able to capture the character perfectly. All of the character voices were amazing though it's funny because Tress sounded like Twilight Sparkle to me like... the whole time. But regardless, everyone's voices were amazing and absolutely perfect. They understood the characters vibes properly, including the voices I would expect from what certain key characters are. All in all this was an amazing way to listen to the book. I don't know if I would call it the definitive way, I do like how the original version, since it was with only one voice, felt more like Hoid telling us the story. But I do enjoy it and hope the other graphic audios are just as good.
Bookshops and Bonedust
Author: Travis Baldree
Length: 8h
Listened On: Libby
Started On: 01/05
Finished On: 01/06
Rating (Of 5): 4
Narrator: 5/5 I will always say that the author narrating the book is one of the best ways to go (if the narrator has the right range/skill for it) since they know what they're looking for, for each character. Travis is just as good as he was in Legends and Lattes with giving each character a unique voice. His range is pretty decent and each character sounds completely unique with the accents and the way their voices are. Viv even almost has a sound in her voice like I would expect form someone who has orc tusks which is something I still haven't figured out how he pulls off.
Romance: 4/5 It wasn't in your face or anything but it was still there. It felt weird in a way too, because you KNOW it doesn't work out for them and can't. Even if it could, you know it won't because it's a prequel to L&L. Even outside of that it felt so out of left field. I always imagine bakers to be a sort of maternal type, so all of of a sudden her being not an older maternal type but a love interest was strange. Still, though. It wasn't the main point of the book, so though a little awkward it wasn't terrible and not offputting.
Magic System: 5/5 This is one of those magic systems that is hard to judge. It's not a big flashy magic system, more like one in a typical dnd style fantasy. There is magic, but it isn't flashy and nothing really remarkable. So instead I'm giving a 5/5 in this section more to cover things like the fantasy elements with the different kinds of races and species in the world. It was diverse and fun to see.
Characters: 4/5 I can't say I disliked anybody in this book. The gnome that Viv befriends is frankly a bit annoying at first but mellows out (sort of) by the end though not much. The dwarf that she has a love interest in is kinda just... there. The ratkin is fun and lovable. Viv is annoying at first but by the end also really mellows out. Ultimately everyone is just.... good. I don't LOVE anybody, but I also don't dislike any of them. I did honestly love Satchel and Potroast. I mean Potroast is adorable but Satchel was really interesting. He was the main one I was rooting for to get his freedom by the end. If Travis makes a 3rd book (which this is set up to potentially allow to happen) I hope that we get to see him.
Favorite Character: Satchel
Second Favorite Character: Potroast
Least Liked Character: n/a
Notes: This was a nice prequel of a book to Legends and Lattes. It's been over a year now since I read the first one but I had liked it. This, much like the first one, had the same issue of being a very slow start. It wasn't a slow start in that it made me want to put down the book, it just didn't have anything super interesting happening for most of the book. Though I suppose, with it being a cozy genre, that is to be expected. Ultimately this was a fun little book and frankly I do hope Travis makes a third book though I also feel like this one cinched things closed pretty nicely. It actually made me really happy to see that there is a chance for her old friend to be able to open a bookshop next to her. I think that would be really cute. I geniuinly don't have much to say about this book since it was, again, just a low stakes cozy book. A nice little read and glad I finally got it off my TBR shelf.