The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson is, in my opinion, a pretty good book. It tells the story of a man from the future being sent both back in time, and to an alternate dimension, ending up in medieval England. Unfortunately for him, his memories were scrambled on the way over, and so he has to slowly and gradually remember his backstory, who he was, and why he's here, over the course of the book. It's a fine story, and one that I personally found to be very entertaining, as well as just plain fun to read.
Of course, nothing is perfect in the world. Although, for the most part, the information revealed to the reader when the main character remembers things does come quite naturally, such as him recalling his life involved him sneaking about a lot when he was hiding from view, there are a few moments when Sanderson just couldn't find an appropriate action for the protagonist to carry out to jog his memory in what felt like a natural way. Sometimes, he just remembers stuff for the sake of the plot at the perfect moment to keep the story going.
But hey, we can't all be Shakespeare. Even though there were a couple moments where I felt that the main character's memory coming back to him was just a bit too forced, the book overall left me wondering just two things: is there ever going to be a sequel, and why can't I have a dimension full of talking bananas?
Review by Daniel G.
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