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A review by isabellarobinson7
New Spring by Robert Jordan
5.0
Second read: 07/06/21 - 07/06/21
Rating: (actually) 5 stars
You know what? Yeah, I'm upgrading New Spring to a five stars. I don't think the right time to read it (first time around at least) is after book five. I think I appreciated it more after reading the series all the way through first. You do run the risk of becoming disinterested in the events of New Spring if you read it after A Memory of Light, so I am not exactly sure what the right time would be. I can only read it for the first time once, so all I can say is that straight after The Fires of Heaven is not that time. Because I enjoyed it so much more this second time.
First read: 09/04/20 - 11/04/20
Rating: 4 stars
(A little OCD happy jiggle because my 40th book in 2020 is also my 400th read book on Goodreads)
So, it's no question that New Spring is more boring than the first five books in The Wheel of Time. It's just a fact. That being said, I still enjoyed it. I think this was maybe because whenever I felt the boring bits coming on, (mostly in the first portion of the book) I switched to audiobook so that I could be doing something while listening, and therefore it didn't feel is boring to me. But I may just be way too much in love with Robert Jordan's world that characters could describe the map in meticulous detail and I would be utterly enthralled.
Despite obvious issues regarding pacing, I really did like the things that we got in New Spring, especially the insight of the White Tower. During the regular Wheel of Time books, even though we do have three main characters learning at the White Tower - namely Nynaeve, Elayne and Egwene - because of everything that's happening (the Dark One coming back, the Dragon being reborn, the freaking world ending etc.) you don't really see the Tower functioning at its best. Whereas in New Spring, set prior to all of this, you actually see channelers becoming novices, Accepted, and full Sisters. That last one in particular was quite interesting because Nynaeve, Elayne and Egwene aren't Aes Sedai as of yet in the series, and so we haven't gotten to see what happens when you are raised to full Sisterhood in the series, which is more or less completely fleshed out in New Spring.
So yeah. It was a little jarring to come out of the flow of the series, but it was refreshing to get an Elayne-less Wheel of Time book. Now back to your regular scheduled programing (aka book six).
(And also I gave this book 4 stars and read it in April, the fourth month, and it has 4 average stars, and it was 400+ pages, and it was published in 2004. OCD happiness explosion)
Rating: (actually) 5 stars
You know what? Yeah, I'm upgrading New Spring to a five stars. I don't think the right time to read it (first time around at least) is after book five. I think I appreciated it more after reading the series all the way through first. You do run the risk of becoming disinterested in the events of New Spring if you read it after A Memory of Light, so I am not exactly sure what the right time would be. I can only read it for the first time once, so all I can say is that straight after The Fires of Heaven is not that time. Because I enjoyed it so much more this second time.
First read: 09/04/20 - 11/04/20
Rating: 4 stars
(A little OCD happy jiggle because my 40th book in 2020 is also my 400th read book on Goodreads)
So, it's no question that New Spring is more boring than the first five books in The Wheel of Time. It's just a fact. That being said, I still enjoyed it. I think this was maybe because whenever I felt the boring bits coming on, (mostly in the first portion of the book) I switched to audiobook so that I could be doing something while listening, and therefore it didn't feel is boring to me. But I may just be way too much in love with Robert Jordan's world that characters could describe the map in meticulous detail and I would be utterly enthralled.
Despite obvious issues regarding pacing, I really did like the things that we got in New Spring, especially the insight of the White Tower. During the regular Wheel of Time books, even though we do have three main characters learning at the White Tower - namely Nynaeve, Elayne and Egwene - because of everything that's happening (the Dark One coming back, the Dragon being reborn, the freaking world ending etc.) you don't really see the Tower functioning at its best. Whereas in New Spring, set prior to all of this, you actually see channelers becoming novices, Accepted, and full Sisters. That last one in particular was quite interesting because Nynaeve, Elayne and Egwene aren't Aes Sedai as of yet in the series, and so we haven't gotten to see what happens when you are raised to full Sisterhood in the series, which is more or less completely fleshed out in New Spring.
So yeah. It was a little jarring to come out of the flow of the series, but it was refreshing to get an Elayne-less Wheel of Time book. Now back to your regular scheduled programing (aka book six).
(And also I gave this book 4 stars and read it in April, the fourth month, and it has 4 average stars, and it was 400+ pages, and it was published in 2004. OCD happiness explosion)