The Family Trade introduces the Merchant Princess worlds (all three of them) and takes us along with Miriam in discovering the mechanics (mostly economical mechanics) of those worlds. Solid world building, this is probably hard economic science fiction. Not my main area of interest but apart from some passages on trading that became too in-detail for me, I enjoyed the book.
I'm just not sold on economical science fiction. And I think this might be why I didn't particularly like following this book's story line. We get a third world, we get a dramatic showdown with a character sacrifice thrown in in the end, and that's … it. Other than that it's slow, tiring movement of goods and ideas between three worlds. Didn't work for me, might work for an economy major.
Miriam has to fight against everything: the family pressured by the secret services, her grief over Roland, the looming marriage … and nothing happens. Miriam spends most of the book locked in the second world, unable to do anything, and events unfold painfully slow (save for the last pages). Didn't really know what to do with this book.
I truly loved this book. The characters work well and stayed with me, the world is consistent and required no effort or conscious suspension of disbelief on my part, and the pacing and storytelling in general was absolutely well-done and enjoyable. I'm really looking forward to the other parts of the series. Also, yay for books with several POV characters.
I loved the diverse characters - strong female characters (with and without sexual relationships, that is!), but also weak female characters, and the same went for male chars.
I loved Arlen because he's so headstrong, and his strength, and stupidity, and his growth. I loved Rojer, not only because he contrasts Arlen so well, but also because he is a guy who is not a typical image of masculinity, and (apart from a few scenes casting him as a coward) he stands on his own, even while contrasting Arlen. And of course, Leesha. Nothing really to say there.
We see Kvothe travelling here: he meets the Maer and navigates his court, hunts bandits in the woods, gets tangled up with Felurian, and finally learns the arts (Ketan) of the Adem before returning to the University.
I liked that Kvothe seems to learn from his story and his mistakes. While some of his capabilities are still a bit Mary-Sue-ish for my tastes, he's by no means perfect and both the storytelling and the story itself reflect this. I liked the different culture of the Adem and its discussion. I'm intrigued by Elodin. I'm irritated by the female cast and can't put my finger on the reason - but it's nothing like a delegation to useless or sexy roles!
While I felt that the evolution of Kvothe's character was a bit smooth and seamless (the book seems to favor action over character evolution), I enjoyed that he is in a much better place in the end of the book with no cheap hook to make the reader gasp for the last book. (I mean, we do! But not because of some cheap plot device - we want more because of the worldbuilding and storytelling involved.)
Yeah, I like these books a lot. I love the world built (both implicitly and a lot of it explicitly), I love many of the characters, even if I'm torn on the protagonist.