The Black Prism (Lightbringer #1), by Brent Weeks

If there is something that went wrong with this book, then it has to be the cover on Goodreads: a hipster young man with dark hair, a goatee and a pointlessly fancy dagger, which has almost no connection to the story. Instead, try the one on Amazon, which at least doesn't offend. And that concludes what went wrong with The Black Prism! I actually liked it a lot.

The story feels like so many other young adult fantasy novels, with the young child with important ancestry that had a bad childhood and is suddenly thrown in a world of magic, war and intrigue, but the characters are fresh, their motivations carefully crafted with respectful attention to detail. The world building follow suit, with a novel magic system, a deep history and not all yet revealed. The writing is good, too. After reading this first book in the Lightbringer saga, I immediately felt the need to read the next one in the series. But there is a dark side to all this, too, as The Black Prism isn't a stand alone book. If you like it, you will have to read it all.

Bottom line: I really liked the love Brent Weeks weaved in his book. This is not one of those "give me your money now" kind of work, it's something that has value and beauty. It's not the greatest book ever written, but what book is? For the fantasy genre, it was pretty entertaining (and big!).