SarahJanet's Books

Eragon

Eragon, by Christopher Paolini

This book was written by a fifteen-year-old. And while I’m extremely impressed that a fifteen-year-old could write a book this complicated, it kind of feels like a…book that a fifteen-year-old wrote. Don’t get me wrong, there are elements of it that are interesting and actually quite compelling, but it kind of reads like a guy who thought, hmm, I like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Dragons, so I’m going to write a book about that! Nothing wrong with that – and it’s certainly immensely popular with kids – but it’s not really my kind of book. It was definitely the YRCA book that weighed most on me, despite the intimidating size of some of the other ones, and it was one of the last ones I read. It took me nearly a week to read, which is very unusual for me, but eventually I finished it. I’m not terribly motivated to read the sequels, but I can definitely understand why kids like it so much. I can rattle off the book talk quite well now, and it’s a great book to excite kids with, between the fairly decent plot and the fact that a kid their age wrote it, but it’s not one that I’m going to be rushing to the sequels for. (For which I will be rushing for the sequels? I don’t know.)

Generally, though, this is not my style of fantasy. Big epic stories, incredibly (and overly, in my eyes) complicated worlds, dozens of characters with Obvious Fantasy Names, and a little too derivative of a lot of other things. (Eragon, you are no Aragorn, try though you might.)

posted by SarahJanet @ 3:15 PM