Book Review: The Way of Shadows

Title: The Way of Shadows
Author: Brent Weeks
Number of Pages: 668
Published: 2008
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 3.5/5

Summary:

For Durzo Blint, assassination is an art-and he is the city's most accomplished artist.

For Azoth, survival is precarious. Something you never take for granted. As a guild rat, he's grown up in the slums, and learned to judge people quickly - and to take risks. Risks like apprenticing himself to Durzo Blint.

But to be accepted, Azoth must turn his back on his old life and embrace a new identity and name. As Kylar Stern, he must learn to navigate the assassins' world of dangerous politics and strange magics - and cultivate a flair for death.


I really, really enjoyed the first half of this book. It was well paced, and the story was different enough to keep me interested. I found the second half lost me a little though (probably because there was a substantial gap between reading that first half, and then finishing the book due to Christmas/working). I'll be the first to admit that the big epic fight scenes in books usually bore me, and that's pretty much the gist of what the last couple hundred pages of this book were. There were a few good plot twists, but there were also a couple others that I felt were almost unnecessary?

Overall though the book was worth the read, and I'm hoping to start the second one tonight.

(On a side note, I loved the acknowledgements in this book - it made me laugh. I can usually judge how much I'll like a book by how awesome the acknowledgements are, and yes I realize that makes me weird, but I love reading them)