Rebecca Warren

The Princess Bride has been one of my favorite movies for decades. The book has been languishing on my bookshelf for nearly as long. While what makes the film great is there, numerous extraneous tangents and long expository interludes ruin the book's flow and destroy the experience.

Rincewind is not having a good life. He flunked out as a wizard due to a bet, and now he is stuck playing tour guide to the first tourist on Discworld. Their antics are amusing at first but quickly lose their luster. Death is the best part of the book, but I was delighted to see THE END.

This book is a slow, plodding tale, especially in the beginning. No one has a happy story, and we get to learn those tales in painstaking detail. Fortunately, this book keeps you guessing till the end and picks up the pace about halfway through.

Like with many series, this second book was better than the first. I loved seeing different mythologies woven into the world, and Bran certainly kept everyone on their toes.

While still good, I did not enjoy this book as much as the first two in the series. This entry in the Mercy Thompson series has more angst and less sass than the previous two books. A large part of this heaviness is caused by the weight Mercy is feeling as Zee is accused of murder, and the love triangle she is embroiled in finds a resolution.