Book Trauma

First things first I have to get my main complaints about this second book out of the way. I really think there could have been a much better way for Kvothe to get a new cloak other than the really jarring and out of context with the rest of the book, encounter with Felurian. The same could be said for his encounter with the Cthaeh. This almost seemed like a section tacked on to appeal to some juvenile sex fantasies which is something that eventually turned me off from reading more of Piers Anthony than I did. Secondly is the Adem. I see that being as fruitless as the fae encounter an used to just give him a sword and more skills. While Tolkien used what seemed like forays into unassociated areas they became part of the story and were revisited and expanded. Rothfuss uses a little too much of the synopsis method.Third and finally is Kvothe's emotional growth. He really hasn't had any. Our hero seems to become more powerful by leaps and bounds but still has the emotional level of a 16 year old. Not to say that that's a bad thing but I'm finding it hard to believe he could be so disciplined with some of his learning yet he manages to earn responsibilities without having the maturity that's usually needed to attain his achievements. I think this bothers me because the opposite was true in the first book. I won't even get into his changing (for the worse) attitude towards women.Now that the negative is out of the way on to the positive. Rothfuss really is a fantastic writer. He manages to make a lot of the mundane and unnecessary seem fascinating. The daily minutia of college life or even the training with the Adem becomes something that has to be known. I'd like to see a bit less repeated detail but enjoy his word crafting. The character that's becoming more interesting to me is Bast and while it is Kvothe's story I hope we learn more of this fae in the next volume. While some of Rothfuss' characters are one dimensional filler he has established a good number of them that I'd care to know more of. While I didn't love this book like I did the first it has still whetted my appetite for the third and I hope final volume in this series. I'd give it a 3.5 but with this system it will get a 4 as 3 is too low.