Eragon

by Christopher Paolini

Another "free" book from that book club. I was possibly less interested in reading this than I had been in Inkheart, but, encouraged by the surprising success of Inkheart, I decided to start reading Eragon.

Yeah, disappointing. I'd heard all this critical acclaim about how Paolini was homeschooled and wrote this book at age Ridiculous, etc., etc.; but to me it was one of the most generic archetypal hero journeys ever written. I understand that it's similar to other great hero journeys because they have so much in common, but I felt like Paolini borrowed elements from every well-known story and pasted them together in a horribly obvious way. One word: predictable. And that was the biggest problem, because I almost never try to think about what's coming next - yet Eragon had no surprises, no twists, and no action intense enough that I kept turning the pages eagerly. Instead, I had plenty of time to let my subconscious work out the hints and foreshadowing, so that nothing caught me off guard.

I have a hard time believing that everyone else loves this book, and that it's been made into a movie, and that there are two more critically-acclaimed novels to follow. But apparently Paolini is a very good writer and I just happened to miss that bit of the book.