The Eye of the World

NO BOOK I've ever read was as hard to put down as this one, but I doubt I mean that the way you think.

I vaguely remember DNFing it a decade or more ago, and recently got the idea to try again thanks to numerous YouTube book reviewers. And it's got a huuuge fandom. And one of my favourite fantasy authors loves it, and even finished the series after Jordan's death. All good reasons to give it another go. I went in really wanting to like it.

I'm a quarter of the way through.

As a big Tolkien fan, it seems... quite familiar. Rural idyll. World ignorant bumpkins. Wise wizard. Gruff Ranger. Flight from dark riders. Companions with M and P names. A “city” where you can't trust anyone except the bumbling innkeep. I can only assume this continues.

After 200+ pages, I'm not particularly interested in any of the characters, and the heavy-handed exposition and foreshadowing has left me without a single question I'm excited to see answered. That many pages should be more than enough to sink at least one hook into my interest, but I'm frankly just bored.

And this goes on for 14 books, 4 of which are described by fans as “the slog”?

I read fantasy for fun. I don't want to spend my time on fantasy novels that are a “project” that requires “commitment” to get to a payoff ten thousand pages from now, (after “the slog”). I found the first quarter of the first book slog enough, and I WANTED to like it.

Hard to put down, because it seems so much like I should like it, but I just don't. DNF.