Review of Stone of Tears by Terry Goodkind

This book was bad. I found parts of it way better than the first book, Wizard’s First Rule, and parts of it abysmal. The only saving grace was the fact that I'm a sucker for crowning moments of awesome, and this book has quite a few.

Richard seems to be turning into a Mary Sue (or Marty Stu, if you have it that way). Don't get me wrong--I love to torture a character, rip away his world, and do bad things to him in general. But you need to make them stick. When you send someone through this pain and they emerge completely whole and happy, what's the point? So far Richard seems to be a rather static character. Yes, he's learning more magic, but he's still a headstrong idiot.

Massive trigger warning (although I don’t know how you could learn about these books without being warned about this before now) for rape in this book. Like, every second chapter Kahlan gets raped. That is … wow.

Weighing in at 979 pages, this book is a doorstopper that could have been edited down to a respectable 500-600. Parts of it were unnecessary, adversely affecting the pacing of the entire story. By the end, I just--well, I wanted it to end.

The story has merit. The characters are likable (not loveable). With some effort, I find the books enjoyable. But they could be better.