A review by hoda93
Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb

5.0

I have too many feelings for this book, and they are all positive (kind of). The one thing I needed - and didn't like that the book lacked - was reading this story from different perspectives.
Originally, I like novels with multi narrations, it helps me decide how to evaluate any character. Anyway, that doesn't mean that I liked this second book any less. It was emotional for sure, both the political and the emotional sides of this book made me take my breath and just hold it in for a long time.
What I really didn't like though was those parts which are full of action and intrigue and suddenly they go calm or the action just stops and I am left there hanging and wanting to die. :D
The ending was particularly hard because everything happened so fast. I am a person who loves slow books. I really do, but I don't like to be reading a part of the plot which is taking its time developing and suddenly find myself reading about a battle or an assassination or something, and then this battle just ends too quickly for me to try to imagine anything. It's all about the politics I suppose.
All of this will not make me give this book any less than 5 stars because I really enjoyed my time reading it and I valued all the emotions it made me feel. Seriously, everyone was in my head even when I was not reading the book. Hobb got me hooked to this world.
I almost loved everyone in this book, except Regal, obviously!! But I believe that had there been different characters' narrations, I would have understood his motives more, but that doesn't mean that he is any less the evil man he is. Ambition makes people assholes sometimes, or in Regal's case, all the time. Still, I needed to know his story and his mother's story and why and how he turned out like this. I also needed to know more about Verity. I mean, he suddenly became notable. Before that he was just there somewhere doing something or just meeting FitzChivalry accidentally.
To sum up, I needed to know more about Regal, Verity, Chivalry (But he's dead in a horse accident!!!), Patience, Burrich (Especially Burrich), Chade, the Fool and even Hands for God's sake. It doesn't have to be about Fitz all the time. We need new perspectives. I've become too repetitive about this point. I hope to know more about everyone in the third book, which I plan on starting very soon. I originally planned on reading it after I emotionally recovered from this one but I don't think I'll wait.
All in all, this has been a really good reading experience. I never thought I'd like fantasy that much.