The Eye of the World

This started as a five star read. It was so refreshing after the bunch of grim dark novels with Malazan leading the way. Heartwarming even in its traditionality. I didn't mind the LOTR aspects as the story overall was more mature. I'm not a fan of Tolkien because LOTR is fairy tail for kids up to 12yo and no more. The genre has moved on but fans don't seem to.

This book appealed to me in that it has the same or similar tropes, hero's journey, high fantasy feeling but it's not afraid to go a bit darker (but not too dark) and down to earth.

But then came the middle part where the characters just keep traveling and traveling and it gets boring after a while. So one star down for that, I struggled until they met Loial.

And then there's the ending. I hated the TV show and its ending sucked. But it's what made me want to finally read the books. I intend to continue reading but it's a coin toss deciding which ending was worse. And I think the book looses.

Behavior of Perrin and Mat at the end didn't make sense. They just accepted vague absurd explanation of how the climax went without a second thought. Those two Dark One minions appeared out of nowhere and immediately were defeated despite being Dark One's closest servants? That's not how you write a novel! This was stupid and anticlimactic. Especially everything that Rand did (except teleporting and saving Fal Dara's army, that was cool). Another star down.