I was a bit apprehensive going into this book. The Sword of Truth series was one of my favourites in my late teens and I devoured the first 10 novels and was friends with Terry Goodkind on facebook (though I by no means know him) for a time which was really awesome. Then I decided to take a break from reading the series and it’s taking me YEAAAARS to come back to it. Since then I’ve had other friends who have started reading the series who had lukewarm reactions to it, have criticised the writing, and who just plane didn’t like it. Admittedly some of those friends do not like high fantasy or long plot arcs, but it made me doubt the love of my youth.
I could not put down Confessor. I’ll be the first to admit that some of Goodkind’s writing isn’t stellar and that there are some redundancies in his style, but I have never been a literary snob and have always believed that ideas and plot make up for a lot.
Confessor is the eleventh book in the series. I was frustrated in the last two novels with where the plot was going. Characters that I had once loved became annoying in their devotion and their lack of ability to see the bigger picture. Boy, was I wrong. Despite this directionless wander or bad quest that I had perceived, it turned out that everyone was exactly where they were meant to be and without it the whole entire series would have collapsed.
Although I’m aware that the series continues, I think that it’s going to be quite different. In fact, Goodkind introduced recently two subseries which I think will be excellent. This book did feel like a conclusion. If you don’t want to keep reading in the series but are past book 8 I would recommend reading to at least here.
This book got be excited about reading again. It made me excited about fantasy. I’ve rated it a 5 out of 5. I spent the majority of the book thinking it was a 4, but the last 100 pages changed everything. I’m really looking forward to reading more Goodkind again. I have The Omen Machine sitting on my shelf, as it has been for several years, but I think it will be coming down soon.
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