Oto's Books: Faith of the Fallen by Terry Goodkind

Genre: Adult / Fantasy

Let me just start by saying, I enjoy the writings of our late author Terry Goodkind. He was an amazing author and may he rest in peace.

This is book six of his beloved Sword of Truth series. Up until this book I had truly enjoyed the series. I'm probably going to get a lot of backlash for that, because many of his fans thought this was the best of the series. I can see why they might think so, or feel as if it was, but to me, it was completely lack luster.

As with his previous books, Terry liked to reiterate some of the things we already know about the characters, this of course caused people to be enraged over this title. I however, was not one of them. I don't mind a refresher, especially after having not read any of his books in quite some time. Being reminded of past events doesn't bother me one bit. If you sit down to read the whole series back to back, I might see why you'd be irritated by this. I can honestly say this was not one of the reasons I disliked the book.

I started reading this book about 4, maybe 5 years back. I was having a sort of readers block after a whole series of events happened in my life. This is of course not to state at the time that I didn't enjoy it, I just lacked the ability and the want to read. For some, people might say this is a red flag of lack of interest in a book. This is not the case.

I've picked it up a few times here and there, seeing if I could rekindle that spark. I finally found the desire to read again and sat down to finish this novel.

This novel is (in the copy I have) 785 pages long. If you're not into long books this is definitely not the read for you. I don't mind long reads, as long as what I'm reading is worth being read.

I felt like a majority of this novel was just empty of meaning. It felt forced. It was as if the reason it was there was because he was trying to add extra fluff to the novel that it didn't actually need. I didn't start to enjoy this book until there were about maybe 250 pages left in the book.

Terry Goodkind sort of foreshadows what's to come by telling us who the characters are before it's time for us to know them in that light. We already know some of the characters from previous books, but I feel like he tells us too much too soon. I felt like I already knew what was going to happen, and indeed I did. I sort of wanted it, but at the same time I didn't because I knew it was coming and I wasn't caught off guard or surprised in the least. There were some surprises, but they more or less were irritations after having taken so long to get to the point.

Terry's previous novels made me excited to read. The action and the adventure is what totally drew me into the books. This didn't happen with this book. He definitely focused more on the characters and who they were. That's great, but without the allure of an amazing plot, it feels empty.

I've read various reviews, and it's either a love or a hate with this book, and I'm sort of in the middle. I'd say it wasn't my favorite of his novels for sure, but it's also not the worst book I have ever read. If he were still around, I'd like to ask him which of the books was his favorite, and I'll wonder for days to pass if this one was his favorite.

While reading this book I kept feeling like I was stuck in the middle and that the book would never end. I've never felt like that about any of his books before. This one just wasn't the one for me. It could by itself, be a standalone. I'd gladly have skipped this one. Either way, I'm looking forward to reading The Pillars of Creation.

At most, I can give this one 2 out of 5 pinwheels. It was just stupendously hard for me to get through.