It’s not easy to chose a reading while the book isn’t published yet, and for this one I chose badly. I actually read quite a few reviews before requesting for the book, enthusiastic ones, and believed that I was about to dive into a touching and fascinating story as « The name of the wind » by Patrick Rothfuss or « Blood song » by Anthony Ryan. Unfortunately, it was nothing like that. I read about the third of the book and decided to stop, as I was bored and the writing sufficiently homogeneous to extrapole for the rest of the story.
On the bright side the part I read was thoroughly thought, with an interesting background and a good atmosphere. But I couldn’t connect with the characters or come to appreciate them. The fact that this part of the story covers quite a few years didn’t help, but it wasn’t the only reason I didn’t care. Some efforts are made to give an edge to the main character’s personality, but not very subtly: for instance, he reacts exactly in the same (rude, immature) way with a figure of authority (once his grand-mother, twice his tutor), before being ashamed, but without learning from his mistake. The rest of the time he shows nearly no personality at all, doing only what is expected of him, longing for a futur ludicrous in my point of view. In the end he annoyed me so much that I decided to stop reading.

(I thank Netgalley and Gollanz for sending me the ARC in exchange for my honest review)