Title: The Final Empire
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Original title: The Final Empire
First published: 2006
Genre: High fantasy, Adult
Series: Mistborn #1
Publisher: Gollancz
Format: Paperback
Pages: 643
Finished: 13/01/2020
Summary: In a world where ash falls from the sky, and mist dominates the night, an evil cloaks the land and stifles all life. The future of the empire rests on the shoulders of a troublemaker and his young apprentice. Together, can they fill the world with colour once more?
In Brandon Sanderson's intriguing tale of love, loss, despair and hope, a new kind of magic enters the stage— Allomancy, a magic of the metals.
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Original title: The Final Empire
First published: 2006
Genre: High fantasy, Adult
Series: Mistborn #1
Publisher: Gollancz
Format: Paperback
Pages: 643
Finished: 13/01/2020
Summary: In a world where ash falls from the sky, and mist dominates the night, an evil cloaks the land and stifles all life. The future of the empire rests on the shoulders of a troublemaker and his young apprentice. Together, can they fill the world with colour once more?
In Brandon Sanderson's intriguing tale of love, loss, despair and hope, a new kind of magic enters the stage— Allomancy, a magic of the metals.
My thoughts: I'm so glad I believed enough in this series to buy the boxed set, because I need to continue on with this now. I don't care that the sequel is almost 800 pages; I require it in order to live on! I've heard that "The Final Empire" is the weakest in the trilogy, and if that's true... I'm about to go through a lot in the upcoming weeks, let's just say that.
Brandon Sanderson is an author that I've held to extreme standards, even having read "The Reckoners" trilogy and only liking it, but not loving it. I always felt that once I got into his high fantasy stuff, he'd become my favourite author. I just had to get through one of his bricks... And now I have! "The Final Empire", along with the rest of the original "Mistborn" trilogy, has been in my possession for a few years now. I've lived in anticipation for them, but all along felt intimidated by the page count. However, it was for such fears that I made my goals for 2020 (to read more thicc books).
This story offers such depth and character development, twists and turns, plots and schemes, that I was just left flailing in absolute awe (literally). Our protagonists, Kelsier and Vin, were amazingly prominent and expertly carved out in their personalities. The world building has a strong and solid base and leaves a lot to be discovered in future books. The plot itself, built on high fantasy politics, a daring heist, and whispers of rebellion was juiciness itself. Just dripping with action and excitement that will have anyone biting their nails.
As for the downsides that forced the rating down from 5/5 to 4,75/5, well... Many have criticised Sanderson for his simple language in this novel but that wasn't something that bothered me. It didn't need to be flowery and lavish; the plot and characters made up for that quite enough. What I will say, however, were that some fighting scenes were difficult to imagine, at least to me, because of somewhat lacking descriptions. Stuff was certainly happening, but I didn't always grasp exactly how the fighting scenes played out and who flew where etc. My second complaint is about some important sideline characters that I kept getting mixed up because they were just too similar and had roles that were similar to each other. I think those could've been more fleshed out, but maybe that's something that will happen in the next book.
Regardless of these small complaints, I really loved this book, and I want to end this review on a positive note. Brandon Sanderson seems to have been writing excellent fantasy since at least 2006 (when this was released) and I can't wait to read more by him. This novel ended up packing such an emotional punch that I won't be able to stop thinking about it anytime soon.
(PS. I love Kelsier)
Rating: 4,75/5
Title: My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Author: Ottessa Moshfegh
Narrator: Julia Whelan
Original title: My Year of Rest and Relaxation
First published: 2018
Genre: Adult, Contemporary
Series: --
Publisher: Penguin
Format: Audiobook
Time: 7h 15min
Finished: 13/01/2020
Summary: Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn't just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?
Author: Ottessa Moshfegh
Narrator: Julia Whelan
Original title: My Year of Rest and Relaxation
First published: 2018
Genre: Adult, Contemporary
Series: --
Publisher: Penguin
Format: Audiobook
Time: 7h 15min
Finished: 13/01/2020
Summary: Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn't just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?
My thoughts: I'd only heard about this book from two BookTubers (Ariel Bissett and TheBookTuber) and they'd both pitched it as this purely weird book that really left a mark, in an odd way. I became curious, though not enough to purchase the book or find it in a library, but when I eventually found it on the new audiobook app I downloaded, I was too curious to let the opportunity pass. It is, after all, only 7 hours long, and will expire from the app entirely on January 17th (2020).
I must say that this book is truly bizarre. I don't think I've read anything quite like it since "The Wasp Factory" by Iain Banks, which I liked, but was also disturbed by. With this book, I certainly felt disturbed. Our main character has been feeling depressed to say the least, and decides that the best solution to her problem is to hibernate. During an entire year, she does whatever she can to sleep as much as possible. It's not at all healthy, yet she goes to such incredible lengths to fulfil this new idea. It is disturbing to read about, but also captivating in a way. She's not easy to like - in fact I think I'd hate her if I knew her in real life. She appears to lack empathy and compassion, and in some cases acts like a really horrible person. I don't even know for sure if I enjoyed reading about her.
However, here is the catch... I couldn't stop listening. Did I like the book while reading it? Maybe. At times I'd say no, at other times I found it humorous. Could I stop reading? No! It was just too weird. I had to know what would happen to her; would she somehow die from sleeping too much, would she ruin her own life through the "project", would she be able to really go into hibernation?
I do recommend it if you're just looking for a super weird reading experience, and the audiobook was alright. In the end, I'm conflicted about my feelings, but happy that I read it.
Rating: 3,25/5
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Title: The Well of AscensionAuthor: Brandon Sanderson
Original title: The Well of Ascension
First published: 2007
Genre: High fantasy, Adult
Series: Mistborn #2
Publisher: Gollancz
Format: Paperback
Pages: 763
Finished: 30/01/2020
Summary: Spoiler alert! Vin, the street urchin who has grown into the most powerful Mistborn in the land, and Elend Venture, the idealistic young nobleman who loves her, must build a healthy new society in the ashes of an empire. Three separate armies attack. As the siege tightens, an ancient legend seems to offer a glimmer of hope. But even if it really exists, no one knows where to find the Well of Ascension or what manner of power it bestows.
My thoughts: As stated in my review for "The Final Empire", I really enjoyed reading the first book in the "Mistborn" series. It was a good mixture of slow and fast paced, setbacks and successes, friendship and betrayal, good times and bad times. It had a good balance, making it easy to stay interested and excited.
I didn't quite find that this was the case with "The Well of Ascension". That balance was somewhat lost, and after hundreds of pages without it, I started to lose interest... I knew, of course, that I wanted to finish the book, and furthermore finish the series, but I was starting to get worn down. A great chunk of this book consists of piles upon piles of setbacks for our main characters. Not only do things start out looking grim; they keep getting grimmer for each page. Now, I can appreciate a story where not everything goes well for the hero, but when everything just goes bad it's not as fun anymore.
That being said, despite how slow this novel was, I enjoyed following Vin's character development, and also seeing the focus shift to characters that were kept mostly in the background of "The Final Empire". The part of the story that contained action were still entertaining, but many of them were too similar to one another. I want each fight to be more original, or else the motivation for so many seems null. I wish this book had been shortened by some hundred pages. I can see why this is the lowest rated book in the trilogy.
Rating: 3,75/5
I didn't quite find that this was the case with "The Well of Ascension". That balance was somewhat lost, and after hundreds of pages without it, I started to lose interest... I knew, of course, that I wanted to finish the book, and furthermore finish the series, but I was starting to get worn down. A great chunk of this book consists of piles upon piles of setbacks for our main characters. Not only do things start out looking grim; they keep getting grimmer for each page. Now, I can appreciate a story where not everything goes well for the hero, but when everything just goes bad it's not as fun anymore.
That being said, despite how slow this novel was, I enjoyed following Vin's character development, and also seeing the focus shift to characters that were kept mostly in the background of "The Final Empire". The part of the story that contained action were still entertaining, but many of them were too similar to one another. I want each fight to be more original, or else the motivation for so many seems null. I wish this book had been shortened by some hundred pages. I can see why this is the lowest rated book in the trilogy.
Rating: 3,75/5
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