[Book Review] Fool's Quest

Fool's Quest (Book II of the Fitz and the Fool Trilogy) / Robin Hobb (Powell's Books)

Previously Reviewed:
Fool's Assassin (Realm of the Elderlings: Fitz and the Fool Trilogy) (Powell's Books)

At the end of Fool's Assassin, Fitz's life has been again thrown into upheaval.  The life he's pulled together in the wake of Molly's passing and raising their small, strange child.  The sudden reappearance of the Fool, near death and mistaken for a beggar, takes Fitz away from his home and his family in an effort to save his friend.  Unbeknownst to Fitz, strangers have come in his absence, raided his home and stolen away his young daughter.

Back in Buckkeep, Fitz is pulled back into his old life, of intrigue, intelligence, and Skill.  Little does he know the journey his life is about to take, of the threats to his daughter, and the ways his life will never be the same.


I don't know where to start with this review, I'm just so angry with this book.  How could she have ended it like that?  Not with just one cliffhanger, but two, and they're both huge.  I think now I understand the rage and frustration often felt by fans of the Game of Thrones TV show.  These are Carnivale season finale type cliffhangers.

Once I started reading Fool's Quest, I didn't want to put it down.  Fitz of Fool's Assassin fully embraced his role as an aging holder and father.  The Fitz of Assassin's Quest is uneasy, driven, and deadly.  In many ways this book is about Fitz rediscovering himself, and about the relationship between Fitz and Fool.  Fitz, Fool, and little Bee have been pulled into the plots of a faction trying to steer the fate of the world.

Advanced Reader Copy copy courtesy of Netgalley; differences may exist between uncorrected galley text and the final edition.

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