Book Review for Eragon, by Christopher Paolini

★★★★★

What I thought it would be going in:

Dragons. That’s really what I thought it would about. I was about ten when I read this book and was just looking for more fantasy adventure books. It was the art that made me pick it up. Say yes to dragons.

My initial impressions:

I loved the descriptive writing. When I first started reading Eragon, I had really only been reading fantasy fiction that balances between middle fiction and the lower end of young adult, books like Harry Potter and Deltora Quest, and so Eragon was my first book where passages were often just the immersion of senses. Everything was so descriptive and I loved it. The adventure was also enticing, an orphan with a great destiny as a dragon rider? Right up my alley.

My final impressions:

I was smitten with the book, thought the movie butchered it, and was excited to read the sequel. It felt like a “grown-ups” book, with everything so fleshed out and the adventure a lot more dramatic and exciting (remember, I was ten). The world-building gave me Lord of the Rings vibes (I had seen the movies but hadn’t read the books yet) and I definitely started moving towards becoming a fantasy writer where I could immerse myself in the worlds I created for myself.

I loved the characters, both the protagonists and the antagonists. There was just nothing for me to gripe about as a young reader. Now that I’m about fifteen years older, there were definitely some things that I didn’t love about the series, but I think they had more to do with the final book.

What I liked most:

The world-building and writing style. I loved the plot too, of course, and the characters. Reading it as a ten-year-old trying to escape reality, it was perfect to get lost in.

What I disliked most:

Back then, nothing. Now, I think about the juvenile writing and way some things are written about, but Paolini was younger than me now, so that’s not really something I can truly dislike about the book, it’s just really the only thing I can pick at it without sitting down to re-read the entire book. I think my dislikes about his style come more into the sequels rather than Eragon.