𝑫𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉 𝒊𝒔 𝒍𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒂𝒔 𝒂 𝒇𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓; 𝒅𝒖𝒕𝒚, 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒚 𝒂𝒔 𝒂 𝒎𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒊𝒏'

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I've finally started Wheel of Time - the first and second have been on my bookshelf for about 6 years...

So, firstly - this was much more readable than I anticipated. I expected something far more turgid than this is.

I really enjoyed this story. Of course I am anticipating that I am grazing mere fragments of the larger whole, given it's a 15 book series, but the parts of the story I got here were really enjoyable and made me want to read more.

Our merry band of guys and gals were fun to read, and written in such a way that I became attached to them - something I don't find all that easy to accomplish. I am attached to dogs and horses and other animals from the second they grace the page but people take longer to marinate for me. But, I did become attached and my feelings towards them all changed and developed over this novel and I suspect that will continue.

The pace is slightly challenging - this one is quite slow - not glacial, but it has elements of repetitiveness and the switching between POVs did have me casting my mind back to reorient myself occasionally.

The ending was quite a disappointment to me, and could have brought this down another star if I was feeling less generous at this festive time of year. It felt written by a completely different person and jolted me out of the story a little bit because the pace and writing felt so different after 700 pages of familiarity.

You can very easily see the Tolkien influence at this stage in certain overarching ideas and plot developments, I'm interested to see how that continues or not.

I've realised that the whole 'kid with untold dangerous power that makes him wrestle with light and dark' trope is a fave and my heart bled for Rand by the end of this. Probably helped to keep it at a 4 star.