The Book Everyone Wanted to Duplicate But Nobody Could

It’s a funny thing when you look back at a really great book and the impact it had on readers stands out as much as the story itself. This is the case with the fantasy novel I’m recommending today. When this debut published in 2011 it became an instant sensation, and for many years after it seemed as if every other fantasy novel was marketed as a comp for ravenous fans. No wonder because this was a rare standalone fantasy novel with no new book from the author in the near future. This was a book everyone wanted to forget they had read so they could experience it for the first time again. I’ve encountered a lot of great fantasy since, but this was a book of the moment and I no longer believe I can recreate that first time. In fact, I can’t bring myself to re-read this book at all for fear of muddying the waters of that experience.