Alright Nefi, You did post a big chunk of thoughts on the book, so I owe you a reciprocal review In respect to people who have not read the book I'll say that there are spoilers below, so if (like me) you prefer your reading experience to come fresh from the tap, you had better not read on.

So: What did I think of it? I have to confess that I came to this book fully prepared to dislike it. I'd read some glowing reviews, and also some sharp criticism of how "Gary Stu" the protagonist was. I have to say, that criticism is warranted. The central character (Kvothe) is made of so much awesome that it hurts. He could wake up in the morning, yawn, stretch and knock out Chuck Norris without noticing, except that he wouldn't because Chuck Norris would be already kneeling by the side of his bed to act as a footwarmer for Kvothe.

The book is, indeed, stuffed full of how brilliant the protagonist is, how quickly he learns everything, how he knew everything about horses and woodsmanship by the age of twelve and how he's a musician as good as Paganini, a genius at magic, admired by his peers, settiing back his tutors with the brilliance of his mind at university, and has multiple women falling all over him. He's a gifted lockpick, speaks multiple languages, has a suitably tragic past and always wins at cards and games of chance. (this is all by the age of fifteen, mind you) Oh, and he's kind to traumatised little girls and feels sorry about killing an enormous rampaging magical beast because, y'know, he'd really like to be kind to all animals, too. About the only thing he doesn't seem to be good at is gardening, but you can bet your butt that if there was some kind of huge crisis that required an expert gardener he'd turn out to be awesome at that too.

Okay, let's set that aside for a moment. The book is told in the form of a third-person framing story (Kvothe as an older man, recounting the story of his life to a historian who is writing it down) and the actual story as told in the first person. For me, the story being told worked much better than the third-person frame. After all, when you're hearing someone tell their own story, you can interpret it with your own grain of cynicism. Who doesn't embroider stories of their life and make things out to be more interesting, themselves a bit more colourful and the parts played by others as just that bit less important? It's pretty much a given that he'll be the star of his own story. If you write in the first person you can either try and efface the narrator as much as possible and give focus to the world and to other people, using the narrator as a window onto the world, or you can revel in the glorious egocentricity of the single viewpoint, and just go for it. Rothfuss does the second, unashamedly, and I have to say that he carries it off beautifully.

For me, the third person segments worked much less well because it's told from "outside". That objective 3rd person voice also going on about how deep and brooding and significant Kvothe is was just a hair too much. This was, in places, painfully reminiscent of some of my early experiences of roleplaying, where everybody describes their character in turn, and each one of them is far more dark and byronic and darn important than anyone else. Eva. Ahem.

If you want to get nit-picky, some of the plot frankly just doesn't hold up. The protagonist is rendered an orphan early on and lives on the streets for a while. Fine, no problem with that. However, at this time he is already an expert at looking after horses, knows every song in the repertoire of the travelling troupe he used to be with, is an accomplished tumbler and used to performing to strangers for money. He's also so gifted at magic that he can kill someone with no effort, without touching them, in complete silence. Children are amoral little bastards (I was one, once, so I know this), and I find it impossible to believe that after one night of being cold and hungry he wouldn't simply be offing people in dark alleyways and taking their clothes and money. Or, if he suddenly developed morals, that he wouldn't be performing in the street or in taverns for money. But no - The Plot has decided that he has to spend many months starving and destitute on the harsh streets so the reader can feel sorry for him, and therefore he does.

So, why have I got this far without concluding that the book's a bust? Well, frankly,all the above doesn't matter one jot. After all, the point of a story is to tell a story, and, in stories, we have larger than life characters. We need our legends to be, well, legendary and our heroes to be brighter and bolder and better because otherwise how can it be a good story? When it counts - in the telling of the story - Rothfuss delivers. His writing is lyrical and descriptive, Kvothe's jaunty attitude is beautifully conveyed and the story slips down as smoothly as a chilled Corona beer on a hot summer afternoon. Holes in the plot? - who cares? 2-dimensional opponents? Meh. Annoyingly perfect protagonist? - Well, I'm sure I wouldn't have wanted to go to university with Beowulf either, but I still enjoy reading about his exploits.

That's really the point. Rothfuss might go on about how he's cunningly subverting the "hero myth" by trying to show the difference between what really happened, and the later stories that have accreted about Kvothe (ones which Kvothe's trying to dispel by actually telling his life story), and fair enough, maybe that's what the author is doing, and it will become more obvious in the later books, but that's really irrelevent.
For me, it was an enjoyable read that was very well told, with no awkwardnesses of language and a smooth assurance to it that carries the reader along in comfort and enjoyment to the last page. That's actually not something you can say about many new fantasy novels these days, where people are either trying to be edgy and morally ambiguous, or writing the latest "urban fantasy hot chick gets dated by werewolf" sequel. An honest story with good guys and bad guys, well-told?
I could get to like that. I'll be getting the sequel.