The Things I'll Do for Free Booze: A review-ish thing of Name of the Wind

So one day on Facebook, this happened:

And I'll do a lot of things for free booze, so I bought the book on Sunday and finished somewhere between Thursday night and Friday morning.

I drafted this review about 15 times and it just kept devolving into a crappy play-by-play plot synopsis.

So here's the blurb, as found on Goodreads:

Told in Kvothe's own voice, this is the tale of the magically gifted young man who grows to be the most notorious wizard his world has ever seen. The intimate narrative of his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, his years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-ridden city, his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a legendary school of magic, and his life as a fugitive after the murder of a king form a gripping coming-of-age story unrivaled in recent literature. A high-action story written with a poet's hand, The Name of the Wind is a masterpiece that will transport readers into the body and mind of a wizard.

Sounds cool, right? 

That's cause it totally is.

When I was standing in the Wife's kitchen browning hamburger for tacos, our friend Aaron said: "You know how they say there are boy movies and girl movies? I kinda feel like this is a boy book." And really, the only people I'd ever heard talk about it have been dudes. So far, I know two other girls that have read it, compared to at least a dozen dudes.. but that's kind of typical of the fantasy genre for me anyway. 

I mean, it's a book by a man, and about a man being all manly and awesome and shit, so if that's your criteria, then yeah, it's kind of a boy book.

But it's a boy book that my delicate feminine sensibilities thought was pretty awesome. It took a bit of a chunk for things to really get rolling, so the beginning was just a bit of a chore to get through.  - But like, a laundry type chore, not a cleaning the grout of the shower tiles with a toothbrush type of chore.  - And while the prose occasionally got a shade purple, the writing was generally pretty fantastic, which was a pleasant deviation from the "great writing but terrible story / great story but awful writing" problem I've run into with a few other fantasy novels. No I'm going to name them right now, fuck off.

Incomplete Thoughts: That girl you wish you hadn't started a conversation with and other things from the bar.

I know that on the Facebook Page (GO LIKE IT GO GO GO) I said my newest post was inspired by a cracked article, but I got some news this week that ruined my whole day, and the next several days after, so I just do not have the mental or emotional capacity to finish that post right now,  which more or less means that post may never actually see the light of day.

So instead, I'm gonna talk about one of my favorite things: getting white girl wasted at the bar. Specifically, some thoughts I had while visiting said establishment.

- - - 

You know what I'm a fan of? Stupid people.  And by that I mean I'm a fan of being reminded that I am in fact not one of them. And the bar is an excellent place to be reminded of such. On Friday, I gave my friend a ride to campus so he could do his radio show, and went to kill time at the bar while I waited for him. This was something of an experiment, because as I may or may not have mentioned before, I kinda really hate doing things by myself. (Like, so much, that I am officially marking "going to the bar alone" as the first of the five things that scare me for the 101 things list.) But, I had some cigarettes (I know, I know, go on and yell at me) and I had my phone. I wielded these things like a damn sword and shield as I alternated between awkwardly standing there, leaning against the wall (it was busy so all the tables were taken) and hanging out in the back where only the smokers go this time of year.

"Now the problem is, when you can't smoke, if you stand and stare out of the window on your own, you're an antisocial, friendless idiot. If you stand and stare out of the window on your own with a cigarette, you're a fucking philosopher." - Rory Sutherland

And a fucking philosopher I was, as I just kind of.. watched people. When regular people do that, it's creepy. When writers do it... okay it's still creepy, but we're researching, man! So there I was, sitting on a bench with a cigarette and catching up on my bloglovin' feed when I happened to overhear a group of friends (that all seemed to hate each other) talking.

If you don't know what the water situation is click here. 

It just amazes me that people can, apparently, have such strong opinions about a subject without knowing a damn thing about it. or without actually saying anything about it either. That's even more amazing.I swear, in the whole 5 or so minutes I was listening to these uninformed hipster chicks, none of them actually said anything, I'm assuming, and hoping, that they were bothered by the whole chemicals-fucking-shit-up thing, but if you'd read a transcript, you'd be damn confused, too.  Like Seth here:

Also, I had one of those "you know it's a small town" moments when one of the funniest things that happened that night was when I realized how long it had been since I'd noticed someone surprised by the fact that there was a cat just hangin' out in the bar. This group of bros freaked out when they saw him and I about died laughing. And you know, there's nothing weird about someone laughing hysterically. Alone.

His name is BK and he's basically a local celebrity. 

The most belated reveal everrr.

I am nothing if not well-timed. 

...I'm sorry I can't even type that with a straight face. 

First thing's first: let's talk about Secret Santa, and how I'm the worst one ever because I got so wrapped up in nonsense this holiday season (more on that later, maybe) that I totally missed the reveal, and then my "Oops I missed the reveal" post got lost in the mire of more nonsense, so here we are, well on our way into friggin January, and here I am finally getting around to showing off my Secret Santa gift. 

The gift I sent,  went to Jamie of The Growing Up Diaries.  I'm sorry that your gift didn't show up until after the reveal. There was some stupid post office nonsense that got in the way.  I was so glad to hear you liked it though, and I'm glad you got it in time to check out of adulthood for a minute after your own stack of nonsense happened. 

Snagged from Jamie's reveal post. 

The gift I received came from Emily of Be Blessed Y'all. (Most precious blog name ever? Yes.) And I freaking love it. You can't quite tell in the picture, but there's two pair of amazing fuzzy socks there - the others are white with red toes and heels. I've been trying really hard to keep from straight devouring that box of Swiss Miss, and the candy canes were all fashioned into perfect minty death spikes as they should be. I still haven't tried on that nail polish yet; gonna have to do that soon! 

And yes, Emily, I love the journal!

Now that that's done, I can tell you guys how freaking excited I am for a project I've just started. It's not an original idea or anything, but I'm doing the 101 things in 1001 days project. You can view the list breakdown here in my previous post. That's all I'm really gonna say about it for now. It's a long-term project, so I'll explain bits of it further as I get to them.

And now that all THAT is done, I can't wait to write a real, actual friggin blog post.
...which theoretically will be up this weekend. I hope.