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I went into this book not particularly enthused, but still curious about a book I knew absolutely nothing about, aside from the fact that it was "fantasy" and the short blurb in the vote thread. I prefer going into books knowing as little as possible so that they can reveal themselves to me at their own pace, so I didn't bother learning anything more about it before reading.
The book started very slowly. I rolled my eyes a few times here and there at the writing. I didn't know where this was taking me, but I was imagining it was leading to mostly a lot of fighting and swords and black iron-hating demons and grand magic and this red-haired guy who is extremely arrogant doing everything perfectly.
But I pressed through.
In my mind, the book doesn't really start until Kvothe's troupe all die. The rest before that is like a very extended and slow prologue. I was finally pulled in during that scene though, finding it and his subsequent time in the woods very dreamlike in description. My imagination was finally intrigued.
Once he got to Tarbean, I realised I was wrong about this book. Yes, Kvothe is definitely arrogant at times, but this is not a book about a perfect hero. Far from it. He makes stupid mistakes sometimes. He doesn't do the noble thing sometimes. He lies, often. And I saw this book wasn't going to be some generic fantasy fighting epic but a gritty, "realistic" account of this kid's very hard (and very exceptional) life so far. Rothfuss did a great job making him human despite his exceptional abilities, and that made me really start to care for him as I read.
Once he got to the university, I was hooked. I loved the story. My favourite part of the entire book was the mini-arc from him deciding to try to go the university to the climax of him getting himself admitted. I was completely captivated reading that section and my heart leapt for joy for him when the masters finally voted him in.
The clincher of loving this book for me was the sense of humour in the story. I don't read much intense fantasy like this but I expected it to be ultra-serious and sombre. Instead Kvothe was often witty and self-deprecating and the mood of the story often took a light-hearted turn. I still groaned at some of the more forced witticisms, especially between him and Denna, but overall I found the humour in the book to be very endearing.
One other point I wanted to touch on was the unpredictability of it all. I loved it. Rothfuss is great at weaving little mysteries and hints all over in a complex way, but by the time that it's time to reveal something, you've already forgotten about the hint he'd left and so it seems a total surprise.
The writing is not perfect and though this ends up being a very good story, I feel like if he'd taken a little more time fine-tuning some parts then it could've been truly masterful. But that's quibbling. I really enjoyed it. I came in to this series only for the one book-club selection but now I'm happily staying for the whole shebang.
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