Book Review: Inheritance (The Inheritance Cycle, #4) by Christopher Paolini

Updated: Jan 13, 2021

I give this book 1.6 stars out of 5

Inheritance: The long-awaited finale to the Eragon series (I'm sure that's what it was called before the release of this book….).To begin with, Inheritance is an Absolutely unnecessary addition to the, then supposed, trilogy. It is also the second part of the ending started in Brisingr (book #3).

The book starts with an extensive and irrelevant description of trees and forests on top of the mountains … I remember sleeping through the first couple of pages … A lot of one-sided (and very confusing) battles that don't add much (actually anything at all) to the story were thoroughly described… That's around 300 pages, more or less, of the book gone to waste. It is clear that Paolini's writing is wearisome and endless! I kept losing track of the events. He invests in the lives of secondary characters I was confused as to whether they have been upgraded to the primary. Generally, there was also a lot of lengthy (and unnecessary) prose.

Albeit, an improvement in Paolini's writing is well noted through this book! Yet, it felt like he was attempting to use many external references in the development of the events here. And that contributed to the inconsistencies in the writing. It also affected the (relatively weak) development of relevant details of the story (which would come up every 100 pages or so).

Finally, a considerable effort was dedicated to tying up loose ends with secondary characters in the story versus the primary ones. All in all, the grand (and long-awaited) finale was a total disappointment… IT WAS FAR TOO LAME FOR THIS SERIES! I hated wasting all this time reading this literary mess! I mean, there were some good bits here and there, but the majority of this publication is merely a filler to the series… If Paolini were to chop off the insignificant events (battles, the long horse-ride, etc etc etc) and had it added to Brisingr, I would've appreciated it A WHOLE LOT MORE!

Short Analysis:

Book cover: It's green and beautiful (3 stars)
Writing style: Significant improvement is noted compared to the previous 3 books, but lengthy and boring prose (2 stars)
Story content: Too much filler content and irrelevant details. Paolini dedicated too much prose for the imagery, battles, etc you get lost in the details and so, lose track of the main story (1 star)
Plot: Poor and rushed details failing to satisfy the reader's interest in it (1 star)
Ending: Absolute crap! I mean, Paolini could've focused on the main characters' story and endings, rather than just rush it off and keep SO MANY cliff-hangers he promised to conclude (in the Author's Note in Brisingr) (1 star)

Final Rating: 1.6 stars /5

I was absolutely devastated when I read Inheritance... A major let down after such a beautiful start (Eragon); Eldest was quite slow and the summary at the beginning of Brisingr summed up all of the important bits the reader would need; Brisingr was well written! Everything made sense! And then... there was Inheritance... I wouldn't recommend this... book... I mean... I can tell people to just go ahead and read Eragon and Brisingr and just be satisfied with what they've got... eughhhh