Challenging Book Recommendation - HELP

[GinDragon]

Despite it's ridiculous amount of exposure and over-praise (imo) The Name of the Wind is honestly a pretty solid and very approachable fantasy novel. The quality of prose is above par, and it's not too dense or windy for a pretty casual reader to follow. The characters are pretty well drawn and the plot moves at a decent clip.

It IS a bit horny though. If I recall correctly, it's pretty fade-to-black about it, but Kvothe thinks about sex a lot, and has plenty of sexual interactions.

And I say that, even though it's one of my favorite modern fantasy pieces.

[GinDragon]

I think The Way of Kings is a bad pick for introducing people to Fantasy work. It's hard to get into. It really dumps you into a weird world with weird mechanics and just says "Stick around, you'll figure it out eventually." And, maybe ten or fifteen hours later, things to more or less make sense, except for the parts that don't make sense to the characters.

Brandon Sanderson is a good pick, though. I'd be more likely to reccomend The Final Empire, Book One of Mistborn. It's still great, it actually explains itself, and it's also pretty clean. Sanderson really isn't a dirty writer. ... he would probably be fantastic at it though, so that's a bit unfortunate...

This is a very good representation of what Way of Kings is, actually. I was pretty turned off of it for like the first 60% of the book, partly because of the confusing world building and disconnected stories. I forgave some of that by the end, but yeah, it's a bit hard to get into.

[lightningcat]

I am going to toss out Pallas by L. Neil Smith. No idea if it on Audible. But it is fairly tame sci-fi, although there is some bad science about how oil was created. It does get up to PG-13 in its sex scenes, and the aftermath of one assualt is rather dark . But the point that turns some people off about it is that it is Libertarian fiction, and unabashedly so.

[Ikoma]

Thanks for all the great recommendations. Due to other family members not getting their decisions made, the deadline has been pushed back. I, however, am ready to go. I'm going to take the Sanderson recommendation for a couple of reasons. I personally have been desiring to read more Sanderson for a while - I've read the fist Mistborn book and really liked it. I know Brandon Sanderson (as an acquaintance, I am friends with people who are friends with him, not that I am friends with him). He is local. I think this will intrigue my family. Sanderson and my family (including me) share a religious outlook on the world. For this reason, I think my family will trust that I am not giving them anything too far outside ALL of their comfort zones - just one (genre).