Nessa's Thoughts

I read this when I was around 13-14, and this was mostly because of the age I was when it was being heavily publicised as 'the fantasy book of the year'. I still have fond memories of this book, which prevents me from giving it below 3 stars.However, I will note down its awful flaws. It is almost insufferably cliched, to the point where when I was rereading it recently, I was wondering: 'hm, the wizard comes in now, right?'Speaking of 'the wizard', Paolini does have troubles with character development. I don't remember the name of the wizard, and I only remember the dwarf/warrior (if I remember correctly) named Murtagh, because me and my friend used to have fun pronouncing it like idiots, like 'MATT DAAAAAAMOONNNNN' from the Team America movie. Eragon has red hair and a slight frame. The wise ol' wizard has Gandalf-like white hair, and wears robes. Now, unfortunately, this means I just think of Gandalf coaching a slightly taller Frodo into taming a dragon...Saphira, the dragon in question, is our other protagonist, and a rather annoying one at that - I'm getting sick of the 'my dragon can't breathe fire until the going gets too tough' trope. Also, the description of her being a beautiful, 'different' dragon.The main bad guy's name is awful too. Galbatorix? Seriously? All I think of are the French Asterix & Obelix comics. He also has pretty stupid motives...All in all, I don't loathe this book, but I understand the flaws just as well as anybody.