John

This book was good the whole way until the end. The whole book you were worried about what the mafia would do if Mark talked but I'm the end...nothing? They just found the body and Mark and his family get to live wherever they want to live and live happily ever after, the end.

DNF. I just can't bring myself to finish this. He rambles and rambles and it's not even relevant to the story for most of it. The main character, a teenager, talks like he's older than me and his actions are nothing like a teenager which is very common in a lot of people's stories so I'm not holding that part to hard against him. Still love King and as many books has he's written of course he would be bound to hit a few lows every now and then. Judging by most of the reviews either nobody agrees with me or everyone is fanatics to the point where every King story is 5 stars

First off, the audiobook is the way to go with this book!
Second, this book is vastly better than the average 3.82 stars It's been given. One of the most unique stories I've read with zero common tropes.

The story follows Kell who as an adolescent tagged along a band of warriors who were sent to to kill the Ice Lich (witch). Only he was the only one to survive and he became very popular but he lived a miserable life afterwards because the Lich put a curse on him before he killed her. Everything he touched ended in ruin and his romances ended in death.

10 years later and the Lich is back and he's called upon to kill her again but he feels like he got lucky the first time and doesn't want to chance fate twice (hence The Coward).

He must go to the frozen north with a cast of wannabe warriors to face her once again.

What you get from this book is great writing, great characters, character growth, and grim tale that smashes through any trope making it to where you have no idea what's going to happen.

Ive read a book by Aryan before and didn't much care for it but this is exceptional and I think everyone should read this.

DNF 194
The only good thing I can say about this book is the cover is gorgeous.

This book is slower paced than The Talisman by Stephen King and I loatheeee that book. Absolutely nothing happened after almost 200 pages. Nothing about the politics or culture was very interesting either. Idk how the rating is above 4 stars when most of the people I follow gave it 1-3 stars. I've noticed that I'm not a fan of most Hugo award winning books so I might just stay away from those from now on.

Read this at your own risk

I wish I liked this book but I just wasn't a fan. I enjoyed the first half of the book just because it was so ambitious and strange that I just had to know what the heck was going on. But after that the story seemed to not have any focus for me. You're getting pulled all over the place.

Also every single time you get introduced to a new creepy character who goes by a different name, it's alwaysss the same person just going by a different alias. Every single time I was like “oh I bet that's actually (John Doe)” and sure enough it was.

There are two female characters in this book that have the exact same personality. They both have the same style of crude humor and they both love orgies and what not. There needs to be differentiation.

This is a book that is as strange as and crude as The Dark Tower and as ambitious as The Licanious Trilogy, so I'm certain this book will be a hit for a lot of people and maybe I'll reread it one day and not understand why I felt this way but I don't see myself giving this another shot anytime soon.