The Goblin Emperor

I'm starting to realize that I really enjoy first-person character driven stories. I totally acknowledge that it can sometimes feel as though nothing really happened in such stories. But for me, there's something really compelling about hearing the inner thoughts of a character experiencing the world they inhabit. A world that is often quite different from my own. In this case, what is the experience of an ostracized fourth-in-line heir to the Elf Empire to feel and do when he inherits the throne he never imagined he'd sit on?

This is not hard fantasy involving a complex magic system and a centuries old war between two great empires. This is the story of a somewhat lonely and scared boy trying to reckon with the new path of life he's been sent down. While the former is interesting, the latter is so much more accessible and relatable with themes everyone can understand. My biggest gripe with the book is that there is a fair bit of name dropping. Totally normal for fantasy, but it doesn't always feel like it's for the world-building, rather it feels like it's simply for the sake of name-dropping.