The Way of Shadows

I was disappointed that I didn't like this book as much as I had hoped given it's GR rating and also the good reviews from reviewers I typically align with. Also, it's probably more of a 2.5 star book.

The good: the plot. The plot kept me intrigued and the pacing was decent. Kylar Stern and Durzo Blint are 2 wetboys (assassins) that are highly skilled at what they do (poisoning, sword fighting, perhaps even a bit of magic). This book is mostly the tale of the coming-of-age of Kylar, Blint's young apprentice.

The bad: the characters. Oh how I didn't like any of the characters. Kylar Stern, our hero, is just... ugh. And I hate that term: ugh, but it's just the best I could come up with. He's shallow. He wants nothing more than to be like his hero Durzo Blint the wetboy (assassin) and yet doesn't want to do the things a wetboy does. I guess before you decide what career path you want to take you should first know what that career is all about.

Durzo Blint was just an all around haughty drunk. Wetboys aren't supposed to fall in love, but guess what: he did. The women were terrible tropes, with Momma K being the all wise, kind, prostitute, keen businesswoman that she was. And Elena, Kylar's love from when they were kids, is an angel. And that's really it for those two women (who are literally all the women in the book, literally there are TWO). To be fair, I guess there were only about 5-6 men.

Something else that just really was like nails on a chalkboard for me are some of the author's choice of words / spelling. I don't know, maybe the term ‘wetboy' actually means something to someone. The interwebs say it is another word for an assassin but also not another word for an assassin. Either way, the word's a terrible choice. It sounds just awful, and I hated reading it aloud in my head. Another thing: the only word “fantasied” (like Edward = Eddard a la GRRM) was wytch instead of witch. Why just this one word? It bugged me constantly. Only fantasy-ing one word, why bother.

The plot was decent, though, which is surprising. As I reader, I enjoy a good plot just as much as anyone. Weeks is a good storyteller, but he really needs to work on characterization. I'll read the next 2 in the series and see if we get some better characters.

This review is disjointed and amateur but makes some good points. This book has disjointed and amateur characters, but has some good plot.