The Book That Broke the World

I feel like I still have no clue what’s ultimately going on in this series, but the picture is starting to become clearer. Like a lot of middle books, there’s a ton of moving pieces here that need to be pulled together, but it seems like there’s a consistent plan for that to happen. I really hope this trilogy sticks the landing!

I am not sure what to think of this one. I liked it, but I felt the story wandered from the main characters, and a lot of the book seemed to be side quests, and it took a long way to basically setup the final book.

New characters were okay, but felt too much time was spent with them and not with the main characters of the first book, which are the main characters of the series.

Plot was a bit convoluted and confusing, but overall I am hoping this book will look better in hindsight once the conclusion to the series is releases.

3.75 STARS

It took me a more time than usual between finishing this book and writing the review, and I'm somehow still looking for the right words to do it

It doesn't really matter, ”All of these words are noise. The only role the brain plays in these decisions is to come up with the explanation after the heart has chosen”, and my heart stands for the first words I've found: It was brilliant!

In the Book That Broke the World we see the world-building expand, while remaining claustrophobic in its vastness, we are introduced to new characters and sides of the conflict, we follow the characters we are already fond of, and get to unexpectedly fall in love with characters we already knew and couldn't imagine how much they would mean to us.

This series has been the perfect mix of entertaining, thought provoking, devastating and heartwarming. I have no idea where the story is going, but it has been a hell of a ride.

Thank you Charles for buddy reading this with me!

I feel like this is a slightly different book from the first one. That's not a bad thing necessarily, but it did take me a while to get over that fact to enjoy it. There is much less of the library and it felt more like a ‘traditional' fantasy in the sense that there was traveling, disparate groups meeting and joining forces and trying to survive against overwhelming odds and foes. There was also MUCH less focus on Livira, who was my favorite character from the first book. I missed her larger presence in this second volume. I also felt the start to middle of this book dragged in places and kept me from being as immersed as I was in the first book, which may be in part due to my expectations of what I thought this story would be and what it was actually. Having said that, I think the end did make up for a lot of the meandering that the first part of the story took and brought it back to what I loved in the first book as well as tying in pieces and mysteries for which the groundwork was laid earlier in the story. I think it is still one of the most unique and intriguing fantasy worlds I have read in a long time and I continue to enjoy what Mark Lawrence is crafting in this trilogy. It may have that shaky “middle book” syndrome a bit, but I get the feeling that will resolve in the final volume, and the things this book sets up will reverberate in the third book. I don't think overall I enjoyed this as much as the first book, but I didn't dislike it by any stretch of the imagination and it still has me excited to see where this all heads in the conclusion.