Right off the bat, I have to say that I really liked The Name of All Things for many reasons; but I definitely have some very mixed feelings about the book as well. On the positive side of things, I definitely found the plot of The Name of All Things much more straightforward and easier to follow, and not as convoluted as I found The Ruin of Kings to be. The Name of All Things also had great pacing like The Ruin of Kings did, and Jenn Lyons also did a great job of maintaining the style of writing and somewhat humorous tone that I loved about The Ruin of Kings.
That being said, it really frustrated the hell out of me that Lyons basically threw Kihrin on the back-burner in this book, and pretty much focused on the characters Janel and Qown for the most part instead. While I definitely love both Janel and Qown (I honestly like Qown the most out of the two), and I think that their introduction to the series contributed a lot of great things to the series in terms of world building, I don't think that Lyons should have introduced them in this book at the expense of Kihrin's role in the series. For the record, I did think that Relos Var was a truly awesome character, though. I was also very disappointed by the fact that Tyentso was barely featured in The Name of All Things after being named empress at the end of The Ruin of Kings. Plus, I was especially disappointed by the fact that Talon was completely absent from The Name of All Things. However, I would like to mention that Jenn Lyons did reply to a tweet of mine on Twitter while I was in the process of reading this book, telling me that both Tyentso and Talon would be returning in the third book, The Memory of Souls; and I'm really hoping that Kihrin, Tyentso, and Talon will all be featured in The Memory of Souls in a much larger capacity than they were in this book.
Ultimately, my thoughts and feelings regarding The Name of All Things are definitely very complicated; since I did think that this book was better and more enjoyable for me than I thought The Ruin of Kings was in some ways. However, I was definitely very frustrated by the fact that Lyons put the spotlight on Janel and Qown so heavily in this book; and that ultimately definitely hindered my enjoyment of this book to a certain extent. Despite the complaints that I have about The Name of All Things, I'm definitely highly anticipating the release of The Memory of Souls.
That being said, my score for The Name of All Things is 7 out of 10.
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