THE EYE OF THE WORLD REVIEW // an unpopular opinion

Here is my spoiler-free review of The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. Let the wrath of the viewers begin!

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D I S C O R D

I N S T A G R A M

G O O D R E A D S

E M A I L

[BookswithBrittany]

Awe what a bummer. Your opinions are completely valid my dear. Don’t ever let anyone make you feel bad for not continuing something you don’t enjoy. I have the opposite feelings about this book, but not all books are for everyone. It was interesting to hear a different perspective. 🤍

[MichaelLayne]

Thank god I’m not the only one. I basically feel the exact same way. Plus the conflict between female and male are just annoying to me.

[laureate]

You're not alone. My attention wandered a fair bit too, and here's why.

Jordan's prose is kind of... DnD. Like, Rand will walk into a room and describe what he sees, down to the ornaments decorating the mantel above the gilt-edged, mahogany-panelled fireplace, in which a pile of logs blazed to the height of a man's chest, spilling flickering orange light across a carpet of the finest claret silk, atop which sat a table and six chairs, each carved decoratively in the shape of yadda yadda blaghrr.

Most writers these days would probably leave it at: 'The room was warm. Right now, that was all Rand cared about.'

Anyone want to disagree?

[MagnanimouseDX]

All the glowing reviews were starting to make me think I was just doing it wrong so I'm glad someone else shares some of my opinions

[patman]

question! Now that this book a show, will you consider rereading or continuing on with the series?

[TheBookishMom]

Even though I did love the book, your opinions are valid and make perfect sense. The first book is VERY heavily LOTR. I will be reading the 2nd book in April so I will let you know how it changes. It took me about half of the book to REALLY get into it, but the ending is what I loved the most. I do like having a very clear picture of creatures and characters, so that may be why I like it. I honestly look up photos/fan art sometimes when I feel like there isn't enough character physicality.

[darwinia]

I agree wholeheartedly. I'll forgive that Jordan deliberately copycats LOTR in this book, but not much else. The writing is clean but lacks eloquence. The characters are largely stock, bland, and lack originality. They don't stir my emotions. I don't care about them, I don't adore the leads, don't hate the antagonists. I feel nothing about them, which is a scathing indictment of the book. If say, Mat or even Rand were killed off, would I care? No. Now compare that to dozens of the characters in A Song of Ice and Fire whose loss kept me up at night, stunned and chagrined.


I have started the second book merely because Covid quarantine affords me the chance to give it a shot. I hope that it will be an improvement, but I doubt it. TEOTW is boring, the characters are uninteresting, and the plot is pure thievery. I thought the magic system might at least prove intriguing, but even that falls flat.

[zemirukaiba]

Fantastic review! way more interesting than the thousands of other reviews where people spit at you the same praising sentences about this book, makes me wonder if they really think those statements.. Your review is more detailed! I'm still intrigued by this series tho because I love a good worldbuilding like Tolkien did, the Way of Kings is not satisfying me at the moment ( 1/3 through)

[emily-katec]

Thank you for always being so organized and hardworking on your reviews. Ok! So tell me if I am right (I am reading between the lines of what you have said here): you had no reason to connect to the info and history because there was no warmth, charm, fun, or wit. These things are the basic human things that are needed to connect with someone, as well as them being smart and strong. WOT was smart and strong but.... where are the other things to make us care. Books and stories are like people. And we have to have a reason to care about all the details and the histories of their souls. That is nearly impossible to do if they seem SOULLESS.
These soul-things weren't in the characters: they weren't funny, or charming, or warming. They never said or did something that made you laugh or cry.
These soul-things weren't in the plot: nothing happened early on that made you feel something.
Finally, these soul-things weren't in the world building: The world and and its history had no immense beauty or terrible ugliness (in LOTR the description has a pay off--BEAUTY, PAIN, MAJESTY, GRANDEUR. The world itself has the spirit of a character!).
I imagine that these things are the reason that I could trudge through, then come to love, the descriptions in LOTR but not WOT--I had a human reason TO CARE! lol Again, is this the same for you?

[urigatt]

lolz I totally relate to everything you've said! except that I am going to move on with the series
If u happen to return to WoT... what I do with it is read REALLY FAST through the boring history lessons, counting on videos and friends to help me catch up with important stuff

[borisfeldman]

Thanx for your honest opinion, every opinion is subjective, but you've argumented it thoroughly and I enjoyed your opinion, and popularity is overrated if you lose honesty. I've read all the series, it took me a year approximately, I wanted to drop it a lot of times, don't sure why I didn't, maybe being stubborn (I don't like not to finish books), maybe some optimism that it will get better.
Well, you've listed all the flows, endless descriptions that look like fillers that don't add nothing, bland and flat heroes, that can be described with one, maximum two qualities/words, endless journeys to endless places, when all of a sudden comes swift catarsis, that feels like author got tired of this book or filled his limit of pages! Some books are better than others, last three (written finally by Sanderson) are less discriptive and more action packed, but I can't get rid of the feeling that it could be decent 3-4 books with all story, without losing much info. Don't feel bad about your opinion, it happened to me a lot of times, when book was praised by others/majority/bestseller and didn't worked for me!

[blueninegs]

That is an understandable reaction, RJ is very description heavy. But my suggestion would be to continue till at least book 4, ideally book 6, before giving up. I love LOTR and ASOIAF too, but the world building and storytelling in WOT blew my mind. Its the most interesting world IMO, but it takes time to come alive. In terms of characters, for eg, Mat is annoying in the first 2 books, but by the end (for me at least) he is the best fantasy character ever written. I'm now on my 3rd reread, and its still so interesting!

[belaswhicker]

You can’t control what appeals to you personally. Your opinions and conclusions are every bit as valid as everyone else’s.

I personally love how Robert Jordan describes details, and I’m one of those slow readers who likes to visualize scenes and characters’ looks, clothes, etc.

I enjoyed your review, though!

Happy reading!

[junechevalier]

I was having a really hard time getting into this series, and tbh I DNF'ed it. The thing about history lesson worldbuilding is that sure, it would provide some deeper lore analysis for those who are already liking the series, but for those who are trying to get into it is such a big time downer

[Ioiopopoio]

I totally get your points. I started the series last year and I did not like the first book very much.

The charakters start very blant and they are developing very slowly! I remember how I hated Nyneave at first.

What I also don't like are the relationships between charakters espacially romances. I am not sure if any relationship has been formed in book one yet, but I hate every romance (but one)!

Nevertheless I am on book 9 now and I am glad that I pushed through. I really love most of the characters. The world and the history that is so confusing at the beginning has developed into one of the richest fantasy worlds I have seen. The series has still its problems and the discriptions and the slow progress are really painful sometimes and sometimes it feels even like hard work to read, but the reward is quite high and I haven't even finished the series.

[TheRASDEL]

It's completely understandable. This happened to me with the Witcher series... I was only able to finish the first 2 books of short stories, but I had to push through them at some points. I had played the games but the books just did not do it for me. I still watched the Netflix Series and I like the world and characters, but I just cannot experience it through the books it seems :(

The fact that WoT has similarities with LotR at the beginning actually enhanced the experience for me. I am so hyped for the series right now! I bet this was a hard video to upload but I truly appreciate the honesty and thought behind it. Cheers

[patothereaderdiana]

Ohh I had the same exact experience with Jonathan strange and Mr. Norrell. It was very wordy but I literally was falling sleep every time I was reading it Jajaja. Well is good that you know why you did not like it, you learned something about yourself as a reader. I will be reading WOT soon, good to know your experience.

[zacq]

Honestly I thought I would not like this book because of all the reasons you talk about here. Somehow while reading the eye of the world, I had so much fun. I think there is a weird phenomenon with this book. On paper I should not like this, but I find myself enjoying the history stories. Even reading through gleeman practice (trying not to spoil anything here) I found to be stressfully entertaining. Honesty is also awesome. Thanks.

[BarokaiRein]

This is one of those series where everyone keeps banging on about how great the magic system is, yet the story itself contains so many annoying tropes in it that I just want absolutely nothing to do with it, like for fucks sake there's a love quartet surrounding the main character and everything in there. I wish someone published a book that was basically nothing but the explanation of the magic system, because as someone who invites his own fantasy worlds for roleplaying games that could be really useful for me.

[alexnieves]

Aw, I'm sorry you didn't connect with the book! I actually just read Eye of the World for the first time and I loved it. Everybody has their own opinions and books they like or dislike, so don't feel bad for dropping the series, that's perfectly ok! Spend your time reading things that you love.