Rio
The main character as an average joe is one lens to view agelessness through, but it is not very compelling. John feels relatively uninteresting and unlikeable. He is often sexualizing the women in his life, and it never amounts to much depth between the characters. One John ends up with his childhood crush and acts like a general douche I completely gave up my attachment to him as a character. I found myself jumping entire paragraphs to get to the parts about post mortality in the society.
As I enter Part III of The Postmortal I am at peace. John has just begun offering end services for postmortals, people who want to commit assisted suicide. I too am ready to give up my life in John's world. It isn't a terrible book, it's just not a stellar one.
Too long for how little the story moves, certain sections of the book drag on for 100's of pages with nothing substantial to show for it.
In the first book we were set up to believe the Chandrian are the thing that pulls Kvothe forward in life, despite this the entire book reveals only one short poem about them. Denna is this mystical figure who people tell stories about, who fate pulls to Kvothe over and over again. Yet by the end of the second book he's still too shy to say he likes her, still too immature to say sorry, and not even a kiss is shared between them. One exhausting section can be summarized with: Kvothe has sex with an ancient being, meets a spooky tree, and gets a cool cloak. It felt like hours wasted on a teenager's fantasy while the relationship with the main woman makes zero progress. This is insanity and there is no end in sight.
Also, Patrick Rothfuss is a captivating writer. Unfortunately it's pointless to read his words because they go nowhere. Quite literally the book ends where it began. Kvothe is back at the university and little has actually changed.
Going Postal is a fun, fast-paced adventure through a familiar yet new reality. It feels like our world is grasping at the sort of humor and magic that Terry Pratchett instills in this novel. I was surprised, delighted, and engaged. I found that I was enjoying myself enough that I had no grumblings or gripes about the story, the characters, or the writing. I loved every piece of it.
A door has been opened to the world of Pratchett novels, and I can't wait to read the next one.
