Mother of Learning

4.50/5.00

Mother of learning is an excellent introduction Progression Fantasy. To put it simply, this book is pure fun. There is not a single boring moment in this book. Despite using a well-worn time loop trope, this book is incredibly unpredictable. We meet so many great characters, and the plot is well designed.

I highly recommend it! I mostly read this novel, but audiobooked a good 30%. I swear the narrator does a wonderful job of bringing one important character to life. A certain “matriarch”. Fantastic!

Emotional Impact -> Total fun! Not a moment of boredom, rootable characters with relatable problems and an entirely unpredictable plot. Such a rare thing to see a character who is absolutely not the chosen one be the main protagonist. The story stands well representative of its central promise. "Repetition is the mother of learning".Characters -> Favorite character - Zach! Is he gay/bi ? That will be fun to read. Loved the anrenea matriarch! what a great spin on the Moiraine-type trope. There is also some good cultural worldbuilding from her, which is a suprising turn. Kirille, Kael are close comptetitors to the top characters. Zorian's character development is good. I'd say it can be better. There was a lot of telling and not showing with him. He is written so analytical compared to all other characters so it is hard to recognize his emotional growth. He does make some great strides with his sister and the matriarch. I really hope he grieves for the aranean spiders in the next book. Plot -> Great plot. Some parts predictable, some entirely unpredictable. So much fun with the magic system! Prose -> Here is where we drop to just average, or even below average. There is so much telling and not showing. A ton of information dumping. Casual prose, so causal it reads like it was written by an amateur. What a missed oppurtunity! Worldbuilding -> THe magic system is primary focus of this book. It is very well done. Great hard-soft blend! Cultural worldbuilding is severely lacking, with the book hyper imited in scope because of the premise. But I think it would be unfair to judge a progression fantasy book like an epic fantasy book. Every moment with Zorian is so well earned. That moment when we telepathically talks into the taime (or the girl hier) is fire! Aranea spiders wow! So woderfully complex! LOVE IT.