Reviews tagging 'Addiction'

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

26 reviews

nortsapa's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

this book really hasn’t aged well? the writing around poverty & music makes me feel like the author isn’t very familiar with the lived experiences of poor folk & musicians (“if you’ve never been xyz you wouldn’t understand” is said a lot) and it has a very j.j. abrams “mystery box” plot style. it prefers being totally unpredictable to having a flowing plot with foreshadowing and the like. many offhand phrases are repeated over and over again (take a shot every time “times being what they are” is said)

i don’t like school settings and i wasn’t really prepared for us to spend 75% of this book in a school, or to encounter quite so much patriarchy. another review says the protagonist is a mary sue and i very much agree.

there’s lots of different fictional races, which i presume is why people say this cast is diverse, but it’s more like there’s russians & jews, the french & italians, the british, and romani people. as a jew, i always feel off-put by kinds of oppression/microaggressions faced by some groups in here, and by the fact that there’s a ‘money race’ for lack of a better term.

at many points the book was a chore to get through, and i was disappointed by the lack of a clean ending. also, lots of grammar/spelling/math errors in my edition?

overall i won’t be recommending it to anyone myself, but it’s a genre staple and fun to talk about with friends. definitely check the content warnings area before embarking.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Addiction, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Medical content, Trafficking, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

graphic depictions of whipping a child, pickup artistry, anti-sex work, timeskips

nerdkitten's review against another edition

emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Classism

Moderate: Ableism, Addiction, Drug use, Mental illness, Sexism, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, Murder, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Gore, Infidelity, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Forced institutionalization, Excrement, Vomit, Trafficking, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, and War

proza's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Drug use, Sexual content, Blood, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Addiction and Rape

tkaryn's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I hate that I love this series. This is my 5th or 6th time reading through and I still laugh out loud and find new hidden gems throughout. If you need to remember why you love reading, this book will do it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent

Minor: Addiction and Drug use

maregred's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

I never want to hear complaints about female Mary Sues again.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Physical abuse, Violence, and Death of parent

Moderate: Bullying, Misogyny, Blood, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Addiction, Drug abuse, and Police brutality

dreklogar's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

0.5

This book was incredibly, offensively bad. The main character was unbearable, judgemental and arrogant and the narrative treated him with undeserved kindness. Sure, it's his story, told by him: usually, I'd just leave it at "this story is boring", but there is also the framing device. The story behind the story, which isn't narrated by Kvothe, and, well... We see the same there. He is so amazing that Chronicler wants to write about him at any cost, despite the aggression, bad temper and unfair treatment he gets at his hands. 

Random people tell stories about him, Bast adores him despite constantly acting like an abuse victim (the fear of Kvothe, being so incredibly keyed into his every slight mood shift, going as far as to constantly "teach" Chronicler how he should act), he does actually learn Chronicler's super complex short-hand very quickly. All of this is outside of the framing device and tells us that no, Kvothe isn't just full of himself. 

Add to that the casual sexism of the story, how it took over half the book for a female character to show up, only for her to be put on a pedestal (Fela did show up at some point, but really, what's Fela like except "beautiful" and "into Kvothe"). Add the incredibly disgusting scene where one teacher just sexually harrasses a female student and it's all just taken in stride. Comments on how all women hate Denna, because she's so beautiful, or how Denna is compared to a natural disaster as an excuse for her hurting people. Who needs agency, right?

Also, oh, the way the poverty was handled. The way Kvothe

managed to leave the streets

was ridiculous and frankly insulting.

Of course, showering 5-6 times removes all visible traces of poverty! When I told friends of mine how his hair was perfectly fine after he slept on the streets for two years, they were impressed anyone would be so uninformed as to write something this bad

.

This would all be more forgivable if not for the fact that the narrative keeps acting as if it's brilliant and has something to say about the human condition and experience. I lost count of how many times I read "If you haven't been X, you wouldn't know", and it is so clear that the author has not, in fact, been X, and has no idea either. The book was very insulting, very condescending and very, very unpleasant to read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Death, Grief, Death of parent, and Classism

Moderate: Alcohol

Minor: Addiction and Forced institutionalization

ekcd_'s review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Likely be a reread, esp once the third book comes out. 

The only negative thing I have to say is the pacing was funny. I thought the book reached a good ending point and there were 500 pages left. Then again and 200 pages left. Then the book actually ended and it felt mid sentence! 

Perhaps the intended effect…

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

missmali's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Bullying, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

percivilious's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Kvothe is so Autistic, it's wonderful.

characters who I think are queer:
Bast
Simmons
Probably Kvothe
The Eolian owners, I thought they were hubbies at first

I want to give Kvothe a hug, this poor man has had such a hard time, his retirement plan didn't even work out the way he hoped.

as Patrick Rothfuss has said, the writing can be a tad juvenile at times but it does work since Kvothe is a child throughout this whole book, of course he'd freak out at being in close proximity with a girl.

I like Denna, I don't have much to say about her but I like her.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Bullying, Death, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Classism

Minor: Addiction, Drug use, Misogyny, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, and Abandonment

akirma's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

fantasy the way it should be done

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction