Ahhhh…Brisingr.  This book is my latest obsession.  I read the first two books, Eragon and The Eldest. when they came out and loved them, so immediately ran out to pick this one up in September.  It was so big, that I wanted to make sure I had time to read it, so I waited a bit before starting it.  I finally got to it this weekend and am just about done.  I am really loving it.  It is a really fast paced read, and Christopher Paolini is really maturing as a writer.  I find his storylines are becoming even stronger the further into the series that he gets.  It starts off brilliantly with a summary of the first two books.  This was so helpful, as usually I feel I have to re-read the first part of a series or just stumble through the first part of a book until I remember who everyone is and what exactly happened in the earlier books.  This summary took all of the guess work out of it.  It was a really great addition and all authors should do this!  Another thing that surprised me was that usually I only really care about the main character, but in this book I am getting increasingly engrossed in Roran’s character – I actually skipped past a chapter about Eragon to find out what happened with Roran…then of course went back to keep reading about Eragon.  I don’t think I have ever done that before.  All in all, this is a great series and I can’t wait to see how it all concludes in the fourth book.