Assassin's Apprentice

The first thing that you need to know about this book is that the dog dies. And not just one dog either. Dogs keeps showing up and dogs keep dying. Okay, so I think there were only two dog deaths, but it feels like more. Especially because this book toys with your emotions like Jurassic Bark, leaving you but a shell of a person crying for a dog that isn't even real.

My dog had better live forever.

With that out of the way, I will say that I really enjoyed this book, though it may not be for everyone. It follows young Fitz, bastard of a prince, as he is introduced to court life and trained as an assassin for use by the king. The story takes a while to get started. It's slow and it jumps around a lot. It's almost episodic rather than a single story, as Fitz proceeds through different phases of training in sequence. And the ending is thrilling, though also a bit of a letdown. I suppose if all the plot threads had been tied off, there'd be no need for a trilogy. But this one ends with more dangling mysteries than I'm used to.

That said, I really enjoyed reading it. This was a fun book to hang out in. I liked the characters and the setting. I had fun figuring things out (even though some of my suspicions were never even touched on), and I had fun anticipating certain plot points, especially the use of magic.

I've already bought the rest of the trilogy, which is more than I can say for Kushiel, and I'm looking forward to seeing Fitz grow and untangle the court intrigue. More than that, I have to know if this is going to play out the way I suspect it will. It could really go a few different ways, which is always refreshing. Especially when the story is a slow-burn, as this one is.

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