Confessor is the last of a long cycle by Terry Goodkind. Once again, I haven't read the others; it's just something I found on my shelf.
I enjoyed the writing. There was extensive philosophical dialogue that was nicely handled. It made me realised that my characters tend to talk in short, clipped bursts, trading swifts sentences back and forth. I think I could mix it up a bit and include some longer bits.
Goodkind also uses a lot of interior monologue. It occasionally borders on info dump, if that term can be used for emotional/intellectual exploration. Again, something that needs expanding in my own writing and this offers a good example of how to do it.
On the other hand, it is quite a violent book - one of the themes is the use of violence and where it might be appropriate, in 'just' wars, for example - and quite a bit of the violence is sexualised. Goodkind appears to be making the point that violence against women is bad and is labouring it somewhat. What that does mean is that there are many female characters playing a variety of roles, which is good for representation of women.
So, I liked this. The writing was good and the ideas were thought provoking. I will go back and start at the beginning of the cycle.
In non-fiction, I read Buy-ology by Martin Lindstrom. It's ok. I bought it thinking it would be quite heavyweight, but it wasn't. It's a good introduction to advertising techniques if that's new to you.
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