The Ruin of Kings

Jenn Lyons
The Ruin of Kings Cover

The Ruin of Kings

Ann Walker
2/10/2019
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It was... okay? Yes, it was big and meaty and definitely fast moving, but the chapters were mostly short, so you could read just one more and then get up and go do something else, like clean the catbox or start laundry. I not once had the feeling of "OMG I must put the rest of my life on hold for a while and just sit and read this," as I had with, say, the first Patrick Rothfuss Kingkiller book, or Cloud Atlas. There was definitely rich worldbuilding here, something I always love, but it kind of whooshed by, as if I was trying to see it from the top of a bullet train whisking the Teenage Sassbutt Hero off to yet another deadly crisis. And that was probably my main problem: I didn't engage with Teenage Sassbutt Hero, or any other character, for that matter. Horrible things happened (so many horrible, bloody, often very graphic things happened, but you probably knew that going in) but I just didn't care. Five book series? No, I don't think so, not for me.