Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Patrick Rothfuss is a wonderful writer. Who didn't love his first two books? And this book is a neat concept. A week in the life of an interesting peripheral character - Auri, the pixie-ish underground dweller. But there are two problems. First, absolutely nothing happens. Auri spends a week collecting pretty junk and imagining its a terribly meaningful process. She meets with no one, there's no plot and no dialogue. More damning, however, is that Auri is not a great character, or even a good one. She's a pretty drawing of one. Too pretty and cloying actually. The whole thing drips with preciousness. Here's a typical paragraph: "She looked down at the sheet for a long moment. And while her eyes were all softness and want, her mouth grew firm and furious. No. That was not the way of things. She knew better. She knew perfectly well where this sheet belonged." There's a 160 pages of this kind of thing. Auri staring at sheets, chewing her lip, and wrestling with just how to arrange it. You might feel a little coldhearted for not enjoying a novella about pixie dust and moonbeams after reading the author's epilogue, which is a plea for understanding. Or you might figure he was right. This book is not for most readers.