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Let's start with some good points: the plot and pacing are engaging, the currencies and magic systems are worked out excellently, and the narration and frame narrative complement each other. I genuinely enjoyed reading it. But good grief is it male-gazey. Every women is introduced as physically beautiful, and most are in some way enamoured with the male protagonist. The double-edged respite is that the story doesn't include many women. sigh I found my enjoyment improved tenfold whenever I ignored the author's decision to make a character masculine. Honestly most of those choices of gender were just pointless and detracting on the author's part — why only men? Rothfuss' is a world I would abhor to live in. The author tries to get as much mileage as possible out of every interesting word; he does this by repeating that interesting word a couple chapters later, as if scared it'll slip back into the thesaurus if he doesn't use it again quickly. All this to say, the writing style is a little uninspired. My edition also had spelling mistakes. (Several.) So while the detailed magic system, economy and systems of measurement are rare — exceptional — in a book, perhaps the author had more pressing aspects of this novel he should have devoted attention to instead.

The mystery in ‘Gideon’ was well-crafted; the mystery in ‘Harrow’ is sublime. As you try build a little lego house of explanations for what's going on with the main character, the author keeps batting it over like a misanthropic cat. It's darker than the first book, colder and quieter. The slow-burn gives you time to cross reference every detail to figure out the mystery, if you're that way inclined. The book is a melancholic treasure trove for overanalysers like myself. Perhaps the pacing could have been made a bit more interesting with some strong setting changes. I didn't feel like the Mithraeum had as strong personality as Canaan House had in ‘Gideon’ and the way the chapters alternated between two storylines meant both storylines were cooped up in the same place for a while. I think ’Nona’ did this better, because one setting was more interesting, but only visited occasionally, like a reward. The pacing was not a deal-breaker, especially in comparison to the bone-chilling mystery. This is my favourite book in a wonderful series.