Eldest by Christopher Paolini (#5, Young Adult)

I will admit to having a hard time really getting into Christopher Paolini's second book in the Inheritance trilogy, Eldest. There was a significant amount of time devoted to explaining Eragon's cousin, Roran's adventures and for some reason, Roran is much less exciting and much less likeable than our hero from the first book, Eragon.

Even though I struggled getting hooked in the first three hundred pages, the last couple hundred made up for the slow start. There is a lot of action toward the close of the novel and it is well worth the sluggish beginning. Secrets are revealed, along with some other ones that you never saw coming. I won't pretend like I didn't already know what the big revelation at the end was, but the form it took did surprise me.

I ended Eragon with a cry of distress when I realized that the book was the first of series and that the answers I so yearned to learn would not be disclosed in that first novel. How I waited five months to read Paolini's next installment is beyond me. Now I wish that the third book was waiting for me on my nightstand so that I could open it up, enter the fictitious fantasy world of Eragon and Saphira and forget that I just had knee surgery and can't walk around my apartment without the use of some rather rubbery smelling crutches. I want to know about the other dragon eggs, I want to know what Gallabatorix looks like and I want to know who Eragon will end up marrying! But alas, I will have to wait until the third book is published to find out.