Brisingr - Christopher Paolini

I only read this book because of the first one. Brinsigr is the third book of the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. My friend gave me Eragon, the first book, as a Christmas present in high school, not to long after it came out, and before the second book came out. I absolutely loved Eragon and could not wait for the second book to come out. The second book Eldest I bought and read shortly after it came out. Then I kind of lost track of the books and never got around to buying the third one. I kept meaning to go back and read the first two again, since I could not really remember what happened in the second book, so I could finally read the third and fourth book. Well, I finally got around to it, and I am not sure when I’ll get around to reading the fourth and final book.

I listened to the first and second novels as audiobooks last year while I was in France and remembered why it was I could not remember what happened in Eldest, it was not that good. It started out fine but the end, horrible. Characters started to feel a bit force. But this is not about the first two novels, this is about the third one.

I decided to give Brisingr a try for two reasons. 1. I wanted to find out what happened to the characters that I had grown to like in the first book and a half. 2. My friend told me that Eldest was the worst in the series and that this one was her favourite.

My reaction? It is not a very good book.  I don’t mind books with a lot of descriptions or a lot of story lines thread throughout, I actually usually enjoy them. More to figure out and more plot twist possibilities, however this book felt really long, and really dragged on. It felt like it could have covered the story in half the time it actually did. There was a lot of details that pulled me out of the story and made me question why it was put in there in the first place. The characters are starting to feel unbelievable and a lot of things seem to be happening more so for matter of convenience than anything. Characters dying because they just aren’t needed anymore. Events happening just in order to get to the next piece of the plot. The writing is not all that great and the story line is getting old. I had been really hopeful about this series, it started out with a pretty good plot idea, good characters with a lot of chance for growth and interesting story arches. But this novel has fallen flat, and I don’t particularly recommend it. If I read the last book (probably not this year, but we’ll see) it will be to find out what happens to one character in particular, I feel there is a lot of promise for the character and a chance for a turn around, although I feel like the author might not head in that direction. We shall see.

Overall I give this book a 2.5/5. It’s okay for what it is, but it could have been so much better with more editing.