My Review of Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb
My summary: The bastard son of the crown prince is dropped off at the palace, causing said crown prince to give up the throne, and the bastard son is then trained as an assassin.
Why I picked up this book: Because everyone keeps *raving* about Robin Hobb and this series, so I figured ‘Sure, why not?’.
What I knew going in: Bought it on reputation alone. Yep, still doing that.
My response: Really a rather rough beginning. I had a hard time connecting with the character at all up until he meets Chade. After that the main character gets a bit of a personality and starts forming actual relationships with people. It certainly went a few places I didn’t think it was going to go, but managed to pull it off rather well.
The scene on the tower with Smithy made me cry.
As a writer I was impressed with the way she used exposition to move us past many boring bits, like learning things, while still having it feel believable that the main character had learned some certain skill that he uses later. I was also a little surprised by how the book would not mention a character for chapters, then use them again with little to no context, but for the most part I was still able to remember who they were.
Do I recommend this book?: Yes, very satisfying book, even if it takes a bit to get started. I’m interested to see where it goes from here, even if that means another two or three trilogies after this one.
