The Name of the Wind — Review

this post was originally published on my Goodreads account.

I have a hard time assigning a rating to this book, as it feels like one-third of a full novel rather than a novel in its own right. But the fact that I read it in a handful of days and found it extremely hard to put down speaks to its quality as a piece of entertainment, at the very least. There are some nitpicks–Kvothe seems a bit too perfect (in a subtle way–it’s not that he has flaws, it’s that his flaws only serve to make him a more noble figure), and the worldbuilding is slight compared to a lot of other fantasy I’ve read. Most fantasy takes its inspiration from European medieval history, but most fantastical worlds don’t have maps that look like a slightly more geometrical version of Europe. But overall it’s a fun and engaging read, and Rothfuss has a particular genius for creating a problem, and then having his characters solve that problem in a way that creates two more problems.