Review – The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

Who else got moved into action to finally read this tome by the upcoming Amazon release of the Wheel of Time TV show? I definitely did, and I’m not sure what to think of it afterwards. It was a slow journey with a rushed ending and an abundance of unnecessary information and descriptions. Though I certainly enjoyed certain parts of it, I couldn’t give it more than 3 stars.

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I usually don’t post on Wednesdays, but I just wrote this review and didn’t put up a post on my regular upload day (Monday and Friday), so here it is. I still want to do my October anticipated releases on Friday, so you’ll get these a bit closer together for once.

The Eye of the World is about a group of young people who live in a place that is very reminiscent of the Shire, whose peaceful lives suddenly get interrupted when they are attacked by Trollocs. Luckily, there was an Aes sedai in the village right at that moment who managed to help fight them off and tell our younglings that they need to leave the village, so their families will be protected. They go off on a journey, get split up, come together again, discover different creatures, learn about history, and overcome some hurdles along the way.

My advice for this one, would be to read the glossary at the back of the book first (I know it’s almost 20 pages, but for me it was definitely worth it). It gave me some insights into the world, gave me an idea of the characters and helped me a lot with the pronunciation of everything. Overall, a great orientation into the world of the Wheel of Time. I also noticed that the preview of the book on Goodreads started with a chapter called “earlier”, which wasn’t included in my physical copy. It gives you a look into the earlier lives of some of the main characters when they were kids, so definitely worth a look in my opinion.

“It was easier to be brave when someone needed your protection.”

It took me quite a while to get through this book and I didn’t find myself really excited about picking it back up every time. Other books were piquing my interest more as this one was pretty slow-moving. I feel like it could have been way shorter and that would have made me enjoy it a bit more.

This book has some obvious Lord of the Rings vibes. Which I expected when looking at the time it was published. A group of unsuspecting younglings who suddenly need to go on a journey through their lands where they encounter all sorts of obstacles. I heard he did veer off of this with the following books in the series, so I’m curious to see what turn it will take.

The whole journey only had a couple of chapters from the women’s perspective. I wish that there was more focus on the women in this book. They have so much power and potential and I would have loved to explore that more. There seems to be more focus on Rand and his journey. I’m writing this review a week or two after finishing The Eye of the World and I have to admit that there is lots that I already forgot, or maybe there really were only little pieces of the book that really intrigued me. There are some interesting creatures and cultures in this world. I’m intrigued by the Ogier, the Aiel the Tinkers and the ways of the Aes Sedai, so I’m genuinely intrigued to read more about them and their culture, but it takes too much random descriptions and unnecessary words on the pages to actually get to the good stuff. The ending then also felt a bit rushed as suddenly things were happening all at once.

In conclusion, I thought that The Eye of the World was ok, but a bit too long-winded. I gave it a 3-star rating. For now, I’m going to wait and see what the TV show brings. Maybe it’ll spark my interest for reading the second book, as of right now, I don’t want to put in that much time and effort into a book that could have been half its size.

Cheers!

Charlotte