Reviews with content warning for Child abuse - Assassin's Apprentice

Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb

74 reviews

kirkwallsquad's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I haven‘t read a western fantasy novel set in a world completely new to me in some time, and this novel was perfect to ease me back into it and remind me of how good fantasy is when written with competence and care. I developed attachment to the characters, including some complicated feelings and changing opinions as the story progressed, and I was right there with Fitz as he tried to understand the weight of his orders and the intrigues of the world he‘d been given to.

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maximauve's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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onthesamepage's review against another edition

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dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I reread this on audio as a refresher, because I'd like to continue with the Realm of the Elderlings at some point, and it's been over 15 years since I first read this.

People often talk about how nothing happens in books, and how that's a bad thing. And I can agree with that sometimes. But this is a prime example of a book where nothing happened, and I still cared about it anyway. We're seeing Fitz grow slowly from a young boy into a teenager. Most of this consists of training montages, or Fitz performing tasks for someone. But I can't help but be invested in him as a character. The magic system continues to be intriguing, and I loved Fitz's bonds with animals.

The last 20% or so progresses a lot faster than the first part, and I may need to reread the very last part physically to make sure I remember what happened (audiobooks do make me zone out every once in a while).

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beautifulpaxielreads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

This may be one of the best fantasy novels I have ever read, and yet I can understand why others have had difficulty with it.

The pace is very, very slow, there is a lot of descriptive language and exposition to wade through, and even then, there isn't a whole lot of plot to be found, at least not at first. All these things considered, I can easily see why someone might get frustrated and give up.

But I found Assassin's Apprentice to be an absorbing, riveting, and immersive read - just what a good fantasy should be.

It also delivers in spades when it comes to political intrigue, which I also very much enjoy reading. The story is told from the POV of Fitz, who for

the first half of the book isn't even given a proper name

, and this was such a masterful move on Hobb's part. You see him as he

grows from a child into a young man

. He's very observant of people and he has a

strong affinity for animals

. His keen observational skills (and at times judgmental behaviour) could make him unlikeable, but Hobb takes care to show us the other sides of him - his compassion, his kindness, his curiosity, and his thirst for knowledge all made me care about him and root for him as a character.

The other characters are well-developed too (even the villainous ones[

well, mostly</spoiler]), depicted as complex, flawed human beings, with many shades of grey.

The plotting was overall excellent, although did find the ending

rather rushed and not well-explained

, but I am willing to overlook that because of how much I enjoyed the rest of it.

4.5 stars from me.

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inkysplodge's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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lizziaha's review against another edition

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slow-paced

3.75

I’m putting my faith in the idea that this book is laying a very strong foundation for the 15 other books. Unfortunately, Fitz is a very lonely child, so the story only really picked up for me in the last quarter of the book, when he began establishing and using his relationships with others. This book has a very straightforward style of writing, which occasionally read as telling instead of showing. It’s a complex book with a lot of moving parts, and you have to explain them sometime, but it did result in somewhat dense chunks of text sometimes. I wasn’t sure at the beginning but I’m definitely curious to see where this goes.

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