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This is the kind of fantasy I like -- excitement and adventure and magic and great world building without people being cut in half and women getting raped every other chapter. What really speaks well for this book is the fact that I actually read it to the end, considering its length (no joke, I stopped reading Game of Thrones 75% through). When I showed it to my brother in Barnes and Noble and said I was reading it, he looked at the sheer thickness of the book and the small typeface and said "Why would you do that to yourself?" And upon finishing it, I felt compelled to brag to my mother that I had finished a big book.

My rating of 3 stars belies how much I liked The Name of the Wind, and I now realize that the rating system in my mind is based on how much I liked the book, and how much I was frustrated when the author did not execute the book as well as he proved he could have. Such is the case with The Name of the Wind, which I would say is 80% well written, engaging, and memorable, while 20% reads like a first draft, or like the author was rushing through to get to the next part, or like he was writing beyond his abilities. Specifically, whenever Kvothe talked about Denna, his love interest, it rang really hokey to me, like adult Kvothe had no self-awareness or personal growth looking back on his 15 year-old self. I'll elaborate later.

Minor, minor spoilers ahead. Don't be a baby, just read them...

Firstly, I did not have too much trouble with the framing of the story, which was off-putting at first but I got used to it. You'll notice that the book is "Day One" of the Kingkiller Chronicles. Well, this is because Kvothe, our main character, is telling the story to Chronicler, a scribe, and each book is a day's worth of his dictation. So the book starts off with several chapters of 3rd person narration, sets up a story with demons and stuff, and then goes into Kvothe telling his life story in 1st person. We don't learn what's going on with the demons and stuff for the rest of the book, but I trust Rothfuss will develop it later on. Take it for what is it. So we begin a new story with Kvothe as a child, going through the beginning of his education at the university.

The story really picks up once he gets to the university. Kvothe makes friends as well as enemies! He struggles with poverty, and gets a loan from a dangerous moneylender in town to be able to afford going to school. He plays music, and dazzles folks at the local taverns with his skill. He almost gets killed by... well I'll not spoil anything.

Here's my problem with the book. At about 75-80% through (I'm reading on the Kindle so don't have page numbers), Kvothe hears about a wedding that ended in tragedy, and he suspects it's the Chandrian, evil mythical creatures that seem to be forming as the overall antagonists of the series. It's made up to be this big huge deal, and he goes through all this trouble to go 70 miles up the road to investigate. Once he's there, he meets his love interest Denna, and they find a Draccus (like a dragon who eats firewood instead of people?) who might endanger a nearby city. So from like the 80% mark to the 90% mark is this side excursion of them trying to kill this draccus, all the while forgetting about the Chandrian entirely (the whole reason he was there!). To make it more unbearable, Kvothe goes on and on about how much he was infatuated with Denna, and we get lines like "It was the best moment of my life when she touched my arm" (not an exact quote, but it's close).

Now Kvothe as he's telling this story is supposed to be like 25-30 years old, reflecting back on when he was 15 or so. Yet he never makes fun of himself or comments on his past behavior, almost as though he has not grown as a human being in over ten years. I can tell you if I were to tell a story about myself even five years ago I'd be criticizing myself and making light of things I took seriously left and right. But Kvothe seems stuck as a 15 year old when it comes to women, and that didn't ring true to me.

Perhaps it's a bigger issue with the book's handling of female characters in general. You'll notice in The Name of the Wind that any female character of note is young, attractive, and usually waifish or pixie-like in their appearance. Denna is the flighty, unattainable beauty who goes around with every guy but lights up around Kvothe. Fela is the helpless but intelligent (and beautiful!) girl who needs to be rescued by Kvothe. Auri is the gentle waif who lost her mind and needs Kvothe's companionship. Etcetera. I'm not here to make a huge deal about it but it stood out to me. Not that these characters are badly written, or that it is wrong to write about young, beautiful women, but what I'm saying is that all the women who appear for more than two pages in this book are young, lithe, and attractive. Perhaps this is just an element of the genre that I should get used to.

At any rate, once the whole draccus detour is wrapped up, there's a kind of quick, "Oh, right, the Chandrian!" ... but then it's back to the University.

However, Rothfuss regained my attention with the stunning climactic scenes at the end. I was glued to the book at the end, and thought it was really well written. It's a shame you have to go through several chapters of low-stakes, unexciting side-adventure to get back to the good stuff.

So I bought book 2, and I'm going to read it. Rothfuss, despite his few shortcomings in book one, has won my trust and has hooked me into this world of Kvothe. I can't wait to see what lies in book two.

Overall I recommend it, it's a great fantasy book and is worth it!