Goodreads Rating: 3.67
My Rating: 4 Stars/3.5 Stars
Pages: 503
Reviewed by: Nicole and Amy
When young Eragon finds a polished blue stone in the forest, he thinks it is the lucky discovery of a poor farm boy; perhaps it will buy his adopted family meat for the winter. But when the stone brings a dragon hatchling, Eragon realizes he has stumbled upon a legacy nearly as old as the Empire itself. Overnight his simple life is shattered, and he is thrust into a perilous new world of inescapable destiny, magical forces, and powerful people. With only an ancient sword and the instruction of an old,mysterious, hermit storyteller for guidance, Eragon and the fledgling dragon must navigate the dangerous terrain and dark enemies of an Empire ruled by a Emperor whose evil and power knows no bounds. Can Eragon take up the mantle of the legendary Dragon Riders? The fate of the Empire may rest in his hands….
Note: I read this book once when I was younger when it first game out. I've never been a huge fantasy fan, and so I didn't really like this book. I decided that since I am doing audiobooks, I would try it in Audio and see if I liked it better. Right around the same time, Amy, my co-reviewer, started to read the book. Clearly she is going to have a different opinion than mine as she is a fantasy fan, so I figured since the reading of this book was so close together why not give you both sides?
Nicole's Review:
I liked Eragon a lot more when I was listening to it and I think that has a lot to do with the fact that I hated reading it and liked listening to it. There were a lot of confusing words that hindered me when understanding it when I read it when I was younger. Lets be honest, some of the ancient language words are hard to figure out what they are supposed to sound like.
This was my second time reading this book (or rather listening to it), and I really liked that there were bits and pieces that came back to me while I was listening to it. There was so much that I had forgotten though, so I liked going back and re-learning the information from the series.
Maybe my biggest problem was that I could zone out a lot more on Eragon when I didn't care for the story, although I was super bummed when the CD skipped and I missed Brohm's story. That is one of the problems you can run into when you get CD's from the library. I found Saphira's voice to be a little intimidating and funny because its this deep throaty voice, like if you've ever seen House Bunny; its the voice Anna Faris uses when she meets new people.
Overall it was an interesting book, and for now, I'm going to continue the series.
Amy's Review:
This was, and apparently still is, a great book. I think it is a good fantasy story that especially fans of The Lord of the Ring trilogy will like. There were some little peeves of mine that lead this book to only getting three stars.
I think, overall, the story-line was great and would give it 4 (maybe 4.5) stars for that. This is my second time reading this and I remember bits and pieces (more from the second book than the first) but there were still plot twists that threw me for a loop. There were some parts that I guessed would happen and some cliched parts but overall, I really did like the plot.
Next, the fantasy world. I absolutely LOVE the world that Paolini has created. I followed Eragon on his adventures while looking on the map at the front of the book the whole way. I love reading about the different races and their languages and cultures and truly think Paolini couldn't have done a more fantastic job. So this would also get a 5 out of 5 stars for the book.
So now many people would ask, "Why only give the book 3 stars?" (Honestly I truly want to give this 3.5 stars but I can't give half a star rating lol). This comes from some of the characters and writing style. On a positive note, I think Paolini created great characters with past skeletons and secrets but some of their mannerisms.... bothered me. During some parts, the actions from the characters, including Eragon, seemed overplayed, overly dramatic, and a bit cliched. The part that bothered me the most was this overly dramatic part. Sometimes the characters reacted too much to a situation and I just felt like it was over done. I honestly don't know how to describe it more than that sadly lol. This also plays into the writing style. Sometimes the writing seemed so simple and elementary. In places I was looking for elegant and great descriptions of what's happening or of places and instead found a very basic description. There were places in the book that had fantastic descriptions of scenery and actions (like in fighting scenes, where I've always had trouble describing in my writing). However, there were places that were lacking and helped drop the rating.
Overall, this is a great book that I clearly enjoyed enough to read a second time and I am really looking forward to reading the second book and seeing what happens in the rest of the series.
No comments:
Post a Comment