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Jun 21, 2021RebelBelle13 rated this title 2 out of 5 stars
After hearing so many people praise this book and hold it as a cornerstone of their fantasy reading experience, I thought I'd better do this book justice and actually read it, instead of judging it on its movie. My final take: not impressed. This novel feels like the younger cousin of Lord of the Rings, told via The Wheel of Time's long-windedness. This book was so full of cliches that my 14 year old called what was going to happen before the chapter ended. You've got the teenage chosen one who doesn't know his parentage or that he knows he's special. He finds a maguffin. There's a wizened old one who leads him on his journey from home who knows more than he's saying. He gathers some friends along the way. There's some giant baddy who was beaten halfway hundreds of years ago but comes back and needs another beatdown. Toss in a prophecy. All. The. Beats. Are. Here. I don't care who wrote this. It doesn't matter that it was written by a kid. It's old, it's cliched, and I was bored. There were huge sections that could have been edited out. In the middle it lacked direction. I didn't care about any of the characters- not even the dragon, sadly. I suppose this is fine if you're just getting into fantasy, but even then it's still longer than it needs to be. If you're looking for a super safe, super vanilla fantasy, this is it, but it didn't do anything for me.