It feels a bit unfair to be reviewing this as I couldn't even get through the first chapter, but unfortunately, I honestly just hated the writing style. It's not good, and is very reminiscent of Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li which is also one of the worst books I've read this year. It's pretentious and tries to be flowery, but in the way that a teenager writing their first piece of fiction for a school assignment would be. We really do not need this many single word sentences, and single sentence paragraphs. All in all, I'd say if you're not someone who cares about writing style, you might be able to get through this book and get to the meat and bones of it, but I am unfortunately not one of those people.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-first-binding-rr-virdi/1139211811?ean=9781250796172 te for more.
This voluntary take is of a copy I requested from Netgalley and my thoughts and comments are honest and I believe fair

Excellent debut and first in a series. The writing is top notch, and everything surrounding the story is well done. There are so many more detailed reviews so I wanted to get to the point Definitely recommend.

The First Binding is spell-binding.
I admit it's not a very clever play on words, but nevertheless, it's fitting.
Normally, the marketing pitch of South Asian The Name of the Wind wouldn't really pull me in, but I saw an interview Petrik Leo did with author, R.R. Virdi, and I loved his passion and what he had to say about his book. I encourage everyone to hear him out, he is a great guest and it made me look his book out which, if my rating wasn't enough of a clue, was the best decision ever.

Some of my favourite novels are coming-of-age, single point of view fantasy novels. You know main character is a legend, that their actions determined the history of the world author imagined. And then, you are thrown to the beginning to see how they actually got there, what kind of life made them become legendary. It's the type of story that brings you close to the main character and it never fails to be compelling.
There is Fitz, Vaelin, Rin, Foolish Cur... and now you can add Ari to that group. The man who is hero to some and a demon to others.
The book covers the earliest period of his life he remembers: when he worked understage as a Sullied kid for a piece of bread, through pickpocketing years on Keshum streets and the beginnings of his learning to be a magic-binder in Ashram.
So, let's get this out of the way first: is this similar to The Name of the Wind? Yes, even author makes that point with opening the book with man entering a tavern and ruminating on silence. Ari is a performer, a Storyteller known for his ability to ensnare his public and makes his stories stick to their mind. So, yes the story opens with a lyrical prose and a certain flair, just like the book that directly inspired it, but it quickly develops into its own story. To be completely honest, the more Virdi was getting away from purple prose and finding his own voice the better it made his book for me. It took me several days to get through first couple of chapters because it felt like author was paying so much attention to the way story was told and the pace took the brunt of it. But once he actually started telling what went down, I couldn't stop reading. I ended up reading all night this book and went to the work with red eyes and happy. And isn't that the best experience for a reader?
Then there is also something else author infused into his story with that's completely him: South Asian mythology and culture were clearly the foundation of the world Virdi imagined, while ticking all the boxes of a classical epic fantasy. It's rich and exciting in its uniqueness and novelty it brings to the genre, but my favourite part is that he made a point to show it's an old world with a rich history, a world that was lived in a long before Ari came to it. Stories he tells about Gods and First Men made me feel that for a such a long book it's like we barely scratched the surface and there is so much more to find out and be amazed by.
The story is kind of episodic in nature, because you can clearly divide it in 3 periods of Ari's life:
-Ari working in a theatre where he first learns to love stories and the importance of performing it. It's also where he first comes in touch with Binding and decides he wants to become a Binder. The kid Ari is easy to love and easy to be annoyed with and it's honestly where book really clicked for me.
-But, I started really loving it with second part of the book when Ari was forced to become a pickpocket and a child beggar. It's probably the darkest part of the novel and it made Ari into a student Ashram has never seen before.
-Third part is ever-the-favorite theme in fantasy novels: the school where our main character learns magic. The life Ari led so far made him miles ahead of other students. You know how there is a rich Draco-rival kid and a teacher with whom our heroes in this type of stories come to clash? You have that here as well, but Virdi flipped it on his head because it's not a usual kid out of his/her own depth who somehow pulls it off- Ari is clearly out of depth, but so is everyone else with Ari. They are not ready for someone like him and I was delighted by his mischief and his adventures as he learned the principles of Binding. It's the part of the story that comes as respite after his Sparrow years and I flew through it.
-Intersected with the story of his life are interludes happening in the presence as Ari meets mysterious woman, Eloine, in Etaynia, a coastal city of Mutri Empire. Both of them are there for a reason and their plans keep putting them at the same place. I loved her and I can't wait to know more about her, but I do have some suspicions on who she may be.
The story ends up on a hell of a cliffhanger and it's going to be hard waiting to see where Virdi takes this story next.
The First Binding is a delight to read. It's just one of those book you lose yourself completely in and I truly hope it will become a big thing.

3.5 stars. I was really excited to read this. It's the first epic fantasy I've read this year and it sounded like it would be right up my alley. I was intrigued by the comparisons to The Name of the Wind, since I really loved that book. The blurb for this book also sounded a lot like The Name of the Wind. After reading this I can definitely say that there is a resemblance. The woman that Ari is enamored with and the way she keeps leaving and showing up reminds me a bit of Denna. Then there is the storytelling that Ari does about his past, the Inn, and the fact that Ari performs on stage as a storyteller, and the way the book is structured. These things all remind me of The Name of the Wind. But there are also plenty of differences.

I thought this book was slow to get going, and in general it is a slow paced novel, but after it got going I began to enjoy it quite a bit. I enjoyed the South-Asian inspired parts of the book. It was new and refreshing for me. I liked reading about Ari's childhood, from the theater, to the sparrows, to the school of the Ashram. I enjoyed reading about the friendships Ari developed, although the bullying was not fun, and I never like reading that stuff. Thankfully, it wasn't too excessive. Then there was the kite fighting, which is something I had never heard of before. I thought it was interesting, and I had to look it up to see if it was a real thing, and it is.

I liked the parts about Ari as an adult a little less, although the Game of Families was an interesting idea, it ended up going differently than I thought it would. I'm also not too keen on the love interest yet. Ari is naive about women, and at this point I don't think this is going to end well. Speaking of women, I've read a few reviews that mentioned that this book is sexist or misogynistic with the way it describes women or lumps them all into one stereotyped category. I think sometimes people don't really understand what misogyny is. I didn't get that from this book at all. Yes, there were some generalizations of women, but I also picked out generalizations of men in the book as well, and I think most of these were done for humor, or to show naiveté and ignorance. Anyway, it didn't bother me.

The blurb for this book makes Ari sound very full of himself and I think after reading the book that he really isn't. He's someone who had a tough life and had to prove himself over and over. I liked that the book showed how easily gossip and misconceptions can turn into what people think are facts. I wasn't so crazy about the fact that Ari purposely let people believe some things that weren't true and then looked back at history in general as being based on a bunch of lies. This is a viewpoint coming from a liar, so of course he would see it that way, but in reality, history is probably a mixture of truth and lies.

Overall I liked this book, but felt it was lacking a little something to make it a 4 star read for me. I am however, interested in reading the next book when it's published, and I'm debating whether or not I want to buy a copy for my bookshelf because I love the cover.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Books for providing me with an ARC of this book.

The First Binding was one of my most hesitantly anticipated books of the year. Let me explain. Petrik loved this book so much, and shared a lot of passages from it as he read, and it sounded like it would scratch my The Name of the Wind itch. And it did, almost too well. Despite the excessive amount of time between publications and the fact that we might never get the rest of Kvothe’s story, The Name of the Wind has been my favorite book for over a decade. I’ve tried to shift favorites, to align myself more with other books or authors I respect immensely, but something about The Name of the Wind captured a piece of my heart and still refuses to return it. So you would think that I’d fall head-over-heels for a well-told story that is so obviously inspired by my favorite novel. And you would be right, but with some serious caveats.

This is the story of Ari, who now goes strictly by the title of The Storyteller. He’s on the run from his past while also capitalizing on the mythos surrounding that past, which I found a fascinating balancing act. Our framework story follows Ari’s Storyteller persona in the present day, and I was enraptured by his abilities as a storyteller and the magic that he wove into the telling of his tales. Within that framework we also get the story of Ari’s past, most specifically his childhood up through the first year or so of his education, the very beginnings of the fearsome and nigh on mythological reputation he built for himself.

I love a good framework story. Not only does it allow you to become invested in your narrator on multiple fronts, it give said narrator more believable freedom to insert humor and asides into their narration in ways that wouldn’t be nearly as palatable without that constant reminder that they are telling their own story. I thought that Virdi utilized this style of storytelling very well, reminding me again of The Name of the Wind as well as Blood Song and The Empire of the Vampire and so many more fantasy novels that I have loved first and foremost purely because of this format. I find it the wittiest and most enchanting form of storytelling, so I was thrilled to experience another book that wielded it so well.

I also loved the philosophical pondering housed in The First Binding. Virdi’s prose isn’t quite lyrical, but it is profound. I found myself highlighting and annotating often, sharing quotes with my husband and coming back to them days later because they were still on my mind. There’s little that I love more in my reading life than a book that makes me think. If a book manages to make me think and feel? That’s a new favorite. The First Binding didn’t quite speak to my heart, but it resonated strongly with my mind.

While I was interested in Ari’s story from start to finish, I found myself having a hard time picking the book up because the pacing was agonizingly slow. The First Binding is less of a book and more of a tome, a brick of a novel that demands much of your time. It’s difficult to commit that time to a story that meanders so unhurriedly toward its destination, especially when you have so many other stories calling to you from your shelves. Once Ari finally reached his school days, the pace improved, but then I was faces with another conundrum as the similarities between this story and The Name of the Wind became even more pronounced.

So much of this mirrors The Name of the Wind. Perhaps too closely. This feels like more than inspiration. From the poetic view of silence at the beginning of the book, to reputation of the orphaned main character and how they’re running for their past; from the search for the truth behind their heritage and their quest to find information on a supposedly mythological entity that others scoff at while our main character knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that these beings exist, and are malicious, as said beings are responsible for the slaughter of our main character’s birth or adopted families; from buying their way into school to enduring some type of punishment in a way that builds their reputation; from their cleverness to every discipline’s interest in them, outside of the discipline they most want to learn, under the tutelage of a brilliant but probably mad master. Even the cursing is nearly identical. I find these similarities too much at attribute to inspiration. It’s not plagiarism, as the writing was still very my Virdi’s own and the stories weren’t quite an exact match, but it still feels almost like theft to me.

Despite my qualms, I did enjoy The First Binding, and I have a feeling that I’ll enjoy rereading it even more. I honestly can’t wait to see what Virdi does with the rest of the series, especially as I believe it will separate itself more and more from The Name of the Wind as Ari’s story progresses. And I’m hoping that, unlike the Kingkiller Chronicles, we’ll actually get Ari’s tale in its entirety before The First Binding reaches its 15th anniversary, which The Name of the Wind celebrated this year. If that is truly the case, perhaps my loyalties will finally swap to someone new, and I just might end up being among Virdi’s biggest fans. Time will tell.

Stories and tales told by the fireside. Stories of gods and demons, of shadows and magic. Stories like these are magic in their own right.

🦉The First Binding is a storybook. One that deserves to live on a great ornate plinth. Or on the dusty shelves of a castle tower. With illuminated crackling pages and a scarred and pock mark cover. The plot itself developed quite slowly, up until about the last third. Then things took off spectacularly. The plot, especially in the beginning runs alongside stories. Stories told about the world and about himself.

✨This is a world of expansive cities, wild countrysides and snowcapped mountains. With beggar kings, merchant princes and wild mages.

🦉We follow the Storyteller, Ari, as he weaves shadows and fires for the taverns people. Where he tells old stories and adds his own. Drama, mystery and magic follows him like a shadow, even from his hard youth and his hard study of his skills. The magic system is at times kinda hard to follow but it’s very magical.

✨The best way I can describe this book is that it really is a storybook. It doesn’t read like most other fantasy books that I’ve read. It’s both slow and fast. The story’s go fast but the storytellers story goes slowly. It definitely helps to bookmark where some of these stories begins as they are great to refer back to.

I feel weird rating this one as it’s almost above rating, but purely rating my own enjoyment of it its a 3.5 star ⭐️

Slow paced book but very prettily written. I think the comparison to Name of the Wind that I’m seeing is a fair one. You’ve got the orphaned young hero coming from nothing to become a great magic user. I enjoyed the world building. It’s a bit rambling and slow but it’s an interesting world to see unfold before you as Ari leaves the slums that had been the whole of his universe and sees more of the world around him. I’d read another book in this series quite happily. It’s worth trying if you like long fantasy books.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an uncorrected e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

The star rating I gave here is perhaps a bit harsh, but in all fairness I can't really say I thought it was a good book overall. For me there were parts that were, there were even parts that were great to amazing. But there were also too many parts I struggled with. This book was my most highly anticipated read for the year and I don't think my anticipation got in the way here. I went in with no real idea of what I was getting and so the book could not clash with my expectations.

This book unfolds over multiple layers of narration. There is a present day frame story in which Ari travels the Golden Road making his livelihood by telling stories. There is a story-within-a-story where we get the story of Ari as a young boy and what he endured during a few years. And then occasionally we get stories that are being told in either one of these previous layers.
I like multilayer stories. Unfortunately in this one I only grew to care for one, being the story within the story. It took too long for my taste to get to that part and any interruption from that story grew to be tedious as I felt I had to claw my way through those as my reading pace would just plummet.
I cannot say what I didn't like about the stories that were being told, except for the fact that they broke apart the paving and weren't told in an engaging voice.
As for the frame story. One if my main problems there is the central dynamic between Ari and Elaine, a mysterious woman who he meets at the very beginning. Their dynamic just felt so crafted and unreal to me. It's a dynamic we've seen over and over and their dialogue constantly resorts to cliche.
Another aspect of the frame story that didn't end up working for me is the lack of information. It's clear that there is a whole life standing between the Ari of both narrative layers and adult Ari sometimes reveals some elements of his past, but we don't really know much about who he is know or what his motivations are. Ultimately this led me to kind of zone out during those sections as especially towards the end I started to lose interest in what he was doing as I didn't understand why he was there to begin with. This withholding of information is supposed to encourage intrigue in the reader and it worked to some extent for the character of Eloine, who also has secrets that are kept from us, but just did the opposite for Ari.
On to the part I enjoyed the most: the story within the story. This narrative layers is divided in several story arcs representing different sections of Ari's childhood and each section took some time to win me over, but once I was settled I usually grew super engaged and the pages would fly by.
I did grow more and more frustrated with young Ari as we near the end of the book. I guess I am also just a bit tired of the boy who's too clever by far but then constantly shows himself to be too dumb to take the advice if superiors and who clearly shows a total lack of understanding of women. These elements would annoy me at times, but I could move past them for the most part.
There is a pretty sexist remark at some point that doesn't get addressed, but I will withhold judgement on that until I've seen whether it is still in the final copy.
Final remark is one that I assume is fully linked to me being granted an uncorrected proof and that is that the copy was filled with a lot of errors. Words would be missing or repeated. It made the reading experience more difficult but I'm confident that most of those will have been spotted during editing and will not make an appearance in the final copy.
Overall judgement: it shows great promise but just didn't engage my attention enough. I'm hopeful that as we get to understand more of the situation in the frame story I might start to enjoy that more, however, I would also need a more deep and real connection between Ari and Eloine to develop before I can actually start to enjoy that narrative layer. As for the story within a story, enough little tidbits have been laid out to make me intrigued about continuing his story arc and seeing how they play out. So I do think I'll continue when book 2 is published.

While I am sure this title would be for someone and the writing itself was not bad, I personally found it too wordy and the descriptions too lengthy for the book to be enjoyable to me. I would still recommend this book to anyone who enjoys this style of writing.

While I am not going to continue reading this book for now, there's still loads of potential in the future for me to pick it back up.

I've read 15% of this story so far, which is quite a bit considering it is over 800 pages. I wanted to get through the initial setting development because I knew that wasn't going to be the true meat of the story. The First Binding is compared in a lot of ways to The Name of the Wind. At first, I thought not reading TNOTW would be to my advantage because I wouldn't compare that well known fantasy title to this one, and I don't necessarily disagree now... The storytelling aspect of this story does take some getting used to. Every time Ari's narration changed to an actual story, I wasn't intrigued about the story at all. I wanted to get back to the inn with the crew amassed so far and figure out more about these characters. I didn't care that Ari has lived through all of these experiences because I didn't even know him! Then in the scenes where we got extended characterization between him and Nisha, I couldn;t stop rolling my eyes at Ari's tone towards Nisha, particularly when he would mention anything pertaining to misogyny. It just felt pretentious for Ari to talk to Nisha about the struggles of women when she already knows this! It was man-splaining but in a fantasy world— my worst nightmare!! As soon as this scene repeated itself a handful of times, I knew it was time for me to DNF this title. Again, I'm not saying I won't ever come back because this world and journey sounded freaking phenomenal in the synopsis, but at least for now, I need a break.

I'm leaving the rating a three because I only made it 15%, and I can't in good conscious give it a bad or great rating because I simply don't know the story well enough to gauge that. Neutrality it is!

This is a tough one for me because while I enjoyed the writing and the story being told... as a fan of Kingkiller Chronicles it rang a bit *too* familiar to me. The story is lush, the character both charming and insufferable, and the beats of similarity are both great and occur just a smidgeon too often. I hope to continue with the story and see it move in a more original direction, I think it still has that potential, but I still feel some of this may have needed a more nuanced eye.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.
I wasn't sure what to expect when picking this up as it was a first novel from an author I hadn't read before. It is the beginning of an epic tale set in a realm that very much resembles Southern Asia. The book begins with "The Storyteller" (his own self-given title and name) arriving in a small tavern in a town that is in some distress due to the death of one of the princes of the realm. He bargains for room and board in exchange for performing at the inn.
The story unfolds from there as he meets a mysterious women, a Singer, who also is in the tavern performing. They are both searching for something they believe can be found in the castle of the royal family. Throughout some early misadventures, the woman convinces the Storyteller to tell her of his past. The book proceeds to weave the two tales together.
This was a long book. And I liked it, but it did seem to get slow in some places and it took me a long time to get through it. There is a lot of very descriptive prose that I liked, and interesting rhymes that appear, especially during some of the storytelling. They just kind of sneak up on you and you realize they were there all along during the tale.
I am looking forward to see where the story goes, but I can't say it was a great book I couldn't put down. I started and stopped with it quite a bit, but did grow interested in the characters.

Thank you for an eARC!

Overall I enjoyed this nit took a while to get through this just because I haven't been in a fantasy mood for a while, but I really enjoyed it and thought it was beautifully written.

The First Binding is epic in every sense of the word. It is thick, elegantly written, and just what the doctor ordered for Kingkiller Chronicle fans world-wide. A TBR-topping ode to storytelling

Rating: 2.5 stars

I feel like this is going to be one of those books that you love or find lacking. I am in the lacking group, unfortunately. I wouldn’t say that it is a bad book and what I find to be lacking may not be an issue for you. So with every review, take it with a grain of salt!

The book is told through past and present events all surrounding a character named Ari. Through these events his story is told and we start to understand his character, although it takes awhile to really understand why they are so important. Because of the way this book is written, I found myself bored more than anything when reading. This could have been due to the length of the book or there being little to no action until you get quite along in the book. I just needed something to grab me but it was few and far between. I felt impartial about the other characters and neither liked or disliked them. This again, could just be due to my lack of connection with the book in general.

If you look at other reviews, some have mentioned it being similar to The Name of the Wind. I have never read that one so I can’t say for sure. Some did not like it being similar so you can always keep that in mind while deciding if you would like to pick this one up.

Overall, this was okay but ultimately just didn’t do anything for me. It’s disappointing because I still do enjoy the cover, but as a reader you can’t enjoy every book you pick up! Hopefully, if you pick this one up you will enjoy it more than me.

This is a fanfic that somehow got published. There is no other explanation for the beat for beat similarities with the Name of the Wind. The prose, the world building, the characters, the plot, are all parallels. The inclusion of South Asian culture/mythos does little to mask it.

It’s a long, boring read because I have read this story before.

<spoiler>
<b>Writing</b>

The, uh, prose reminds me of TNOTW. The narrator, or the author, thinks he’s very clever, and it’s obnoxious. It’s written in the first person, which makes it all the worse. If I was 15 years younger (like when I read the book this cribs from) I’d probably like it, but now I find this style of writing tedious. Some things are said prettily enough, but for the most part it was unbearably cheesy.

“His hair carried more streaks of chalk and iron than it should have at his age” - “Iron” is used constantly as a descriptor. It’s in hair, filling eyes (as a color or as an emotion!), voices are “ice over iron,” and so on. The word is used 70+ times in similar contexts.

“The air thickened into something chewable” - This is said in moment of tension…

“A simple spun shirt” - the fuck is a spun shirt? It’s called “homespun” because people spun the yarn and wove the cloth at home. Entire shirts weren’t falling off spindles. It’s clear the author knows this because 200 pages later we have, “He wore a shirt of homespun that could have been cotton.” Clunky sentences like that abound, padding this fucker out.

“I exhaled, releasing warm air over my wooden tool.” - absolutely hilarious

“Somewhere between” is used 13 times to describe wide ranges of various things. Like, ridiculous wide ranges. Someone’s eyes are “somewhere between slate and pine boughs,” which shouldn’t even be on the same scale, but I think it’s supposed to be hazel? Another silly one is, "The beverage was a color somewhere between pine wood and molasses." It’s between pale and dark? Thanks, very informative.

“The promise of” - 25 times. It really stands out when you read the whole book in one sitting.

Lots of "bands" of things. Bands of rain, bands of ice, bands of moonlight, bands of iron, bands of flexible wood, bands of pain, bands of sparrows, bands of bandits. It’s used 60+ times.

Dialogue is broken up by big chunks of pondering and info dumping. Little details are obsessed over: the foam clinging on a woman’s lips, the color of a glazed jug, how big someone’s paunch is. Like the paunch, it gets in the way of the story that refuses to happen.

Lots of “kissed bys” and “made themselves knowns.”

Ari rolls his wrist a lot, whatever that means. At some point Eloine/singer starts rolling her wrists too. Everyone’s rolling wrists.

People are described in very unflattering ways. Faces like dogs, blubberous masses. "Flaws" are exaggerated and gone over in great detail. Either characters have godlike beauty or they are unforgivably hideous. Fat people are pointed out most frequently, and the narrator/author seems to have particular disgust for them; he chooses to present them as monstrosities drowning in their own fat, even the nice ones.

"Thrummed like a mandolin string" - mandolins are strung in courses, two strings tuned the same which are placed side by side. The doubled strings are typically struck at the same time. Ari carries a broken mandolin around with him, you'd think he'd know more about the instrument. This is such a silly thing to pick at, I know.

It's ironic that the narrator complains about other storytellers going on tangents when it happens constantly in the book. The plot is routinely interrupted for Ari to opine, philosophize, bemoan his fate, or tell us how ugly someone is.

"Set" is used to describe a number of days. The narrator tells us this varies by country since there is no universal calendar. The problem is at 80% I forgot what it meant in whatever country he's in in whichever timeline.

While I think how the author/narrator describes skin tone is often iffy (burnt sugar, sand, wet dirt, tree bark, tea, molasses, lots of sun kissed skin, etc), I do like the variety of ways he does so.

<b>Plot</b>

Full spoilers. I note many of the things taken from the Name of the Wind. Not all of them, because there are a lot.

<spoiler>A guy walks into a bar. He’s very dramatic, gets a free beer, and convinces some old people to run around town and gather an audience from him. Dude starts folding aka splitting his mind, just like Kvothe.
He’s a performer who works the crowd, like Kvothe.
He knows the truth about things in the world, has some deep, essential understanding of them. It reminds me of someone, someone who was good at naming things. Things like the wind…

The similarities, scenes and plot points lifted directly from TNOTW, don't stop. I understand the author did a lot of research to emulate hanging verses from historical storytellers, which you can see in the stories Ari tells. I don't have an issue with the framing narrative in general, we just spend far too much time in it and the plot diverges frequently. It’s highly disruptive, as is all the in-story storytelling. I should have counted how many times it happens, it’s gotta be 20+.

The first chapter is him being dramatic and listening to the very short tale of how the owner of the bar came to own a bar. Then he spends more time being dramatic so he can tell a story. He gets distracted by a super captivating lady, dark eyed and mysterious, not at all like the other girls. Like Denna. From TNOTW.
In chapter three, we get the in-story story he built up to in chapter two. Riveting stuff. And to think, I was going to read a book about shipping containers instead! Why should I care about this world’s mythology when I don’t know anything about it at all? He tells the story in about ten minutes, does some magic shadow puppets, and people lose their fucking minds.
He goes for a walk in the rain with the singing lady. He names her Eloine (note that a song Kvothe performs is about a woman named Aloine). We are exposed to some of the most banal, cringy “banter” I’ve ever read. What intelligent woman is going to be like, “Why aren’t you staring at my soaking wet body? Don’t you find it pleasing?” Such puerile complimenting fishing from an adult is awful to read. The emotional whiplash is too. This pair flips between inelegant “flirting” to soul-crushing sadness every other sentence.
The narrator, who doesn’t have a name at this point, has a secret identity. One he is absolute shit at hiding, as the singing lady clocks him immediately. It makes him pissed when she calls him out. She pets him, which settles him down (she does this many times throughout). Dude has the emotional control of a baby. He gets oddly flustered whenever she’s remotely crass. I’m not into this dynamic at all.
Ari, who now has a name, decides to tell this woman, who he has known for all of thirty minutes, his life story. Why? Because she’s pretty, and there’s something about her, I guess. She isn't like other girls, and Ari isn't like other boys as she keeps reminding us. And yes, this is the same set up as TNOTW. Rainy night, tavern, a maudlin fallen hero, has their life story ready to divulge to whoever asks nicely/sexily.
There’s another delay in Ari’s actual story when their lame date is interrupted by some religious fanatic knights. Isn’t that what happens in TNOTW? At least Kvothe got the shit beat out of him in that and didn't leap into Matrix-style theatrics (as in Ari straight up leaping through a window to run across rooftops).

Finally, 10% in, we get to what we've been waiting for: the main character's story. He's an orphan who works at a theater. After two short chapters of this miserable life, he's telling another story. Yes, he is telling a story within a story within a story within a story. The plot, the main plot, stops dead. Half way through this sub-sub-sub-story, which is a creation myth, it turns into erratic rhyming verse. Why? This happens when someone else is telling a story, too, just sporadic rhyming. I don’t know if it’s part of real world tradition, or the author’s invention.

What's strange, besides this disjointed story telling, is that child Ari talks and tells stories exactly like adult Ari. We don’t know his age, and he probably doesn’t either, but we could at least have an estimate. His little orphan friend Nisha kisses him at one point, so I’m guessing he’s over 10? Some speculation about his age could have helped with characterization, and explain why a child is spewing poetry left and right. [At around 50% we learn that, almost two years after the theater fire, he's 14]

A wizard shows up to teach him magic, to use his brain in a special way. More similarities to TNOTW. While Ari is learning how to firebend, he also learns sword fighting.
This training montage thankfully ends when everyone dies.
It’s worth noting the owner, Khalim, was researching stories about the evil Ashura, and the Ashura killed him. Very similar to why Kvothe’s family died. The exact same reason, one might say.
Just when it's getting interesting, we are flung back into present time. Some demons catch up to adult Ari and attack him in the tavern. I feel like I've read a book where that exact thing happened. Anyway, he then tells another story for the bar. I skimmed over it, it's filler which doesn't advance the plot, and it's more informative than entertaining.
Eloine shows up, having stolen his money to buy a dress for her private machinations, and we return to little orphan Ari. The kid falls in with a band of thieving urchins led by a man who conveniently has it out for the dude/demon that offed the theater troupe. The thieves are called sparrows and there is a ton of chirping and bird calls and other bird themes.

Things pick up around the halfway point. I fear I'll be sucked back into the terrible void of the framing narrative. The story continues to mirror TNOTW, and teenage thief king Ari follows a rumor he hears to an inn with a storyteller. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess he finally goes to magic school, meets a girl, and makes money on the side as a performer.

But before that, he plans a heist because he needs more money to travel to magic school. During this part the forced lyricism goes away. I'd wager the author got tired of writing it. Instead, we are laboriously taken step by step through the plan, following every little interaction and explanation of why something is being done. Ari makes a shady deal to work for the merchant king after a year of magic school, then heads north.

We're subjected to another intermission. Eloise meets some Romani (I forget the in-universe name), Ari walks to another town to find a library/kill a prince. Why? Who knows and who cares.

Back in the past, Ari takes a wagon up north. I swear, he even travels in the same direction as Kvothe… On this wagon he meets another wizard/binder (also like Kvothe, when will this end?) There's a strange girl with secrets (Denna mk 4). She's Laki, from Ampur. More stories are told. Ari worries about money despite being an adept thief.

He shows up at the school and is immediately sent into a test, amazing timing. One of the teachers is a weirdo who refuses to teach him. Could Ari have a special relationship with him in the future? Will there be a rich boy he butts heads with? Based on what happens in TNOTW, yes, and the story indeed bears both out.

He gets into it with the rich boy, has to go through physical punishment, and drugs himself to walk across coals unscathed. He had the option of being whipped, but that was just too much like TNOTW, I guess. The teachers, the classmates, the classes are all the same as TNOTW. You think changing the manner of punishment obscures this?

One reason he wants to go to magic school is to use the library to look up stuff about the demons who killed his family.
The wacky teacher takes him to a tower where they store all the students driven insane, a tower the teacher was once confined in. Ari is even pushed off the tower as a test.
He decides to focus on crafting magic to make money.
He talks to a tinkerer and hears news about an Ashura attack.


After this there's another "intermission". Ari gets an invitation to a noblewoman's room and the fucking weirdest, most nonsensical conversation takes place. I guess the lady wants to fuck him. Her husband shows up, and Ari books it. Later he gets a black flower pin and a note from the husband that says, "welcome to the game." A prince shows up to explain the meaning of all the flower pins.
An assassin shows up and they have a cryptic conversation. Soon after we learn something's wonky with Ari's magic. Like Kvothe. Ugh. Then Eloine shows up. She's been entertaining a prince, who's lending her to Ari to translate a children's book. I think three and a half days have passed in present time. They are skyrocketing up the social ladder.
The "game" is the same vague bullshit we've been getting since ASOIAF. Why space is devoted to this is beyond me. Why Ari, someone who ran a criminal information ring at 14, is so ignorant of the local political climate he is trying to infiltrate is also beyond me.

Back at magic school, he struggles with his magic string project. He goes to town and finds the rich boys about to torture a kitten. He gets beat up but saves the cat.

He hears about another Ashura attack in Ampur and spends a stupid amount of money to travel to the site. He learns a secret language. Like Kvothe. (I'm tired of it too).

In Ampur he finds Laki hiding in a cellar. Who could have predicted he'd see Denna mk 4 here? She talks about a giant serpent, he scoffs at it, then runs into a giant serpent. (Like Kvote runs into a draccas/dragon)

He and his friend Radi act like loud idiots, dislodging loose snow and riling up the serpent. It's a really frustrating scene to read. The snake dies in an avalanche caused by all the screaming. The truth of this is exaggerated, just like…

Ari/Kvothe starts inadvertently calling things by their "true" names. Will Ibrahm/Elodin notice? I'm going to predict at a certain point Ibrahm will say it's too dangerous not to teach him.

Ari manipulates a mentally ill student named Immi into teaching him, mirroring the relationship between Kvothe and Auri.

He uses the secret trader signs he learned for his reinforced strings. He’s making the strings for a kite contest so he can beat all the other kites. I think this subplot is one of the only original ideas present. The duel/betting scenario is not. There’s an entire boring chapter of kite fights. He gets caught cheating/betting, gets his winnings confiscated, and gets a promotion. Who could have possibly predicted that.

He takes the cat to visit Immi. Then he carries his cat around in a sack during a festival, not bother to drop him off in his room. Has the author ever interacted with a cat in his life? You think they’d tolerate being bagged up and carried around loud places? Nitham/Ambrose gets hold of the cat. Ari/Kvothe finally binds something and uses it to attack. Ibrahm/Elodin shows up to prevent someone from dying. Ibrahm takes him as an apprentice because he is too dangerous not to teach. We’re following a map, and there was no other possible outcome. He gets drunk with his friends, and we’re back in the meta-story.

Ari goes to a masquerade. Eloine kisses him then fucks off. The next day some convoluted shit happens and Ari is accused of murdering a prince. We end with him in prison.

</spoiler>

<b>Worldbuilding/Characters</b>

It wasn't clear at first where present day Ari was, how distant from his own culture(s). The meta-story is some kind of jumbled European region. There are a lot of Latin derived words, a church and theocracy, the lady he's talking to seems based on Romani tropes (much like Denna). She's dressed basically like a cast member of Carmen, barefooted, lots of bangles. It's very generic.

His childhood world sounds much more interesting. There's a caste system, colorism, a massive trade route called the Golden Road. Unfortunately, at the beginning, we're trapped in a rundown theater and don't get to see much of it. All the worldbuilding happens in stories the characters tell each other, mostly about gods.

The magic system is a little interesting. It's a watered down version of what the creator god, Brahm, can do. The way it works isn't clear, and isn't that impressive when you think about it. Ignoring the similarities with tTNOTW, the magic here has Ari picturing multiple images in his mind then convincing himself that what he imagines is reality. It's not clear what "folding" is, or why he can't have something pre-folded and picture it all at once instead of going through the whole process. Does he fold it in half? I don't know, applying logic is kind of pointless. Magic works because it does. I think the problem I have is that it doesn't sound that challenging to me, and it doesn't sound like people need any special ability to do it. Ari gets a handle on it rapidly. He's a little prodigy. Like Kvothe.

I've read some reviews that explain Ari's pretentious and arrogant behavior as a way for him to move through racist and hostile environments. I would accept that, except for one thing: he has the same attributes as a child. It isn't a defensive, adopted persona. It's who the character is.

Lots of gender and racial essentialism, which is too common in fantasy and far too common in the real world. Why do we still need it in modern fantasy?

No queer characters. Is that important? Perhaps not, but I don't see a good reason to not include any. The only hints of it are adulterers and rapists. Yikes. [A sexy androgynous person gets tacked on near the end. A request from the editor to be more inclusive? A trope?]

The place Ari is from is a kingdom named Abhar, which is within the Mutri Empire. I don’t think a kingdom could exist within an empire, definitionally. The ruler of the kingdom would not be a monarch as they are answerable to a higher authority.

</spoiler>

<b>Conclusion</b>

Without the framing device, without the purple prose, and truncating some of the story telling, this book could have been pared down to a third of its size and be all the better for it. It did not need to be a 350k tome. Cut away all the fluff and there's a decent, if derivative, story hiding inside.

As is, I'm not sure who could enjoy this. People who haven't read the Name of the Wind. People who accept the thin veneer of South Asian influence as representation. People who believe clunky sentences and awkward metaphors are literary. For me, this was an immature slog that straddled the line of copyright infringement.

Cataloging all the shit lifted from the Name of the Wind was boring. The sheer amount of it is absolutely appalling, and I'm stunned it was allowed.

I DNF'd this at almost 30%, although I do plan to pick it back up again. I was just getting invested in the first person narrator's story, which had taken awhile to start with, when the narration switched to a second POV, written in 3rd person present, and I was so frustrated with this break in momentum that I put it down and haven't yet been sufficiently motivated to pick it back up again,

The prose is quite reminiscent of Rothfuss, which can be a good and a bad thing. Rothfuss is known for having a lyrical style for a fantasist, but I find that his prose is sometimes very empty, in that it sounds good but doesn't really parse well. Virdi's prose suffers from this a bit, although not to the same extent as Rothfuss. Virdi has talent as a writer, and I could very well end up loving the First Binding, but it did not hook me as I had hoped it would.

I do intend to come back to this book at some point so I will revise with a full review when I do.

Can I interest y'all in a story about stories and the lies we tell?

As part of the B2WTour I read "The First Binding" by R. R. Virdi. We follow The Storyteller as he tells his unvarnished backstory to this mysterious singer who has excellent banter with him. See, he has dispersed his own tale across many people (already have my tinfoil hat on) to obscure his movements. Just like the quarry he is chasing.

Won't say too much about the story, but it has magic, monsters, myths, banter, intrigue, goat recipes I need to try, and excellent foreshadowing. Already thought of a reason to reread it to count things, but I don't have time for that! My long suffering assistant listened to me read most of it aloud too.

Angry at you all because now I have make some adjustments to my bookshelves to make more room.

Reasons to read:
-You like thicccccc book series
-We got stories about stories, in your stories
-I can't stress enough how much I enjoy good banter
-Poor decision making by young MCs (and when they are older)
-MC actually communicating with their friends about an issue, mostly
-Cheeky reference deep enough in the story to make sure folks are hooked
-The second character's chapters
-Language mishaps
-I think I see the meta-bones of the story, if that makes sense...

Cons:
-Unfortunately this is the first book so I can't dive into more, only 800 pages for the conspiracy board to make connections

The First Binding is one of those books that people will either love or hate. I didn't hate it, but it unfortunately didn't work for me.

One of the main comps is The Name of the Wind of which I read only two or so chapters before dropping it, to pick up at a later date, but even based on those two chapters I'd say the comp is correct. It has a very similar feel to that book, and a few readers who actually read the whole thing said so too.

I have no problem with the writing, it's beautiful and I didn't mind all the descriptions. My main problem is the pacing, and some other stuff I'll tackle in a bit.

This is a slow book, and when I say slow, I mean you will feel like you aged a few years by the time the action finally starts. And even when it did start, I still found the present chapters slightly more compelling than the past ones. And the past ones are the majority of the book...

Then there's the length. Could it have been shorter? Probably. SHOULD it have been shorter? Here's the tricky part - I don't know.

Because for the whole book things are happening at a snail pace, then near the end they pick up and just when I felt like the action was starting for real...the book ended.

In a way it was a complete story (would be a shame if it wasn't for 800+ pages), but also not really? Somehow I think it could've benefitted from even more pages. Perhaps shorter past sections to balance out the present timeline?

Moving on to the next thing that bugged me, the "I'm not like other girls trope", but a male version. Let's call it "I'm not like other men". This is my very first encounter with that trope and I can't say that I like it. It ruined my enjoyment of those few present chapters.

Eloine kept saying that "most men wouldn't do that" or "most men don't think like/of that" and Ari in turn said how he's "not like most men" and that he's "different". This happened several times and nearly made me laugh.

Ari might as well be different from other men, but telling us instead of showing us is not the way to convince us.

I get that poor Eloine never met a man who did the bare minimum but...there's no reason to praise this one so much. His ego is big enough without it.

Which brings me to the characters. They were okay, I didn't hate anyone and had no favourites. But I wish we got to know Eloine more instead of Ari, she was more interesting.

The world building and magic system were some of the best parts of the book, other than the previously mentioned writing. WE NEED MORE SOUTH ASIAN INSPIRED FANTASY WORLDS!!! I really liked learning about it, and I do see the potential of this series and might even read some other books set in the world. Maybe following different characters though.

2.5

*Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review*