The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

I borrowed this book from Kristin. It's a fantasy, a genre I usually enjoy. She hadn't read it yet but said her friends raved about it. The Name of the Wind is the first in a trilogy. The reviews for it elsewhere are positive.

On the whole, though, I didn't like it very much. I did like the way it began: the setting is in an inn in a dangerous land populated with people beset by demons. The innkeeper is a quiet red-headed man, Kote. On a night populated with regulars, someone staggers in wounded with what appears to be a demon in tow. I was intrigued but then soon after a biographer called Chronicler shows up. He's figured out that Kote is really someone else, a powerful wizard called Kvothe.

Kote/Kvothe reluctantly agrees to tell his story but insists it will take three days. Get it? Each book is a day in the telling of the story. Oh dear. Here I was all about finding out this land and the demons and now we're going back into the past.

Well, the story was fairly interesting at first. A member of a travelling troupe of musicians, actors, and what have you, Kvothe journeyed around with his parents and an interesting assortment of characters. Something about a song Kvothe's parents sing enrage a mysterious group and provokes them to attack the troupe. There is tragedy and Kvothe is left to struggle on his own until he is fifteen and makes his way to the university.

For me, this is when the story really bogged down. I didn't care about Kvothe or his experiences at the university. Think of him as an arrogant and unlikeable Harry Potter, showing up other students and teachers. He makes enemies that cause him all sorts of problems. He falls for a girl who shows up, disappears, shows up, disappears...well, you get the idea. Whatever difficulty comes his way, he manages to find a way around it.

I won't be reading the second or third book. It's just not for me because I just could not care about the main character. I realize that not all main characters are likeable and that's okay with me but there has to be something that "clicks" for me to stay interested. It just didn't happen for me. I kept waiting for it to get better and it just didn't.