Reviews tagging 'Religious bigotry'

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

30 reviews

navyredrose's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful inspiring tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Torture, Murder, Xenophobia, Violence, Suicide, Sexism, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, Cultural appropriation, Mental illness, Genocide, Dysphoria, and Chronic illness

kpiedmonte's review against another edition

emotional hopeful mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Religious bigotry, Violence, and War

Minor: Sexism, Murder, and Misogyny

lakinglaze's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I can’t believe it, but Elantris is now kind of my favourite book by Brandon Sanderson (that I’ve read so far). I absolutely loved it. I loved the quiet struggles and political intrigue. The characters were so varied and fun. The whole mythos surrounding everything was constantly a mystery. And Sarene as a character was just kind of perfect, honestly! I really enjoyed it and can’t wait for future stories to come!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement, Death of parent, Pandemic/Epidemic, Suicidal thoughts, War, Child death, Colonisation, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Hate crime, Abandonment, Alcohol, Classism, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Body horror, Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, Torture, Violence, Blood, Genocide, Chronic illness, Gore, Mental illness, Sexism, Slavery, and Suicide

mahra's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

4 ⭐️ That was so good! I really enjoyed this book. The world and the magic systems were beautifully crafted. I really enjoyed the characters. 

However, the pacing was a bit off. The story took a while to pick up for certain characters (not the main character, though).

I liked the ending but not the way it was written. The POVs were changing very rapidly and it was not enjoyable to read. I also had a few issues with the prose.

PS: Lightsong was my favorite. I'm still thinking about him.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Religious bigotry, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Abandonment, Colonisation, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Misogyny, Murder, and War

auliarach's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Genocide, Gore, Slavery, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, Violence, War, and Chronic illness

rynaissanceenby's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Overall, this was a decent book and worth reading. I was routinely pretty disappointed by the lack of strong female characters, though. Sarini is great, but she's the only important female character in the whole book, it seems like. 

There also seemed to be a few too many twists. Every time you started to get comfortable with the plot progressing, there was some major twist thrown into it. Normally, twists bring excitement and intrigue to a book, but in this case, it almost started feeling monotonous because of how many there were.

I also find it very dubious that

Sarini wouldn't recognize Reoden even after spending that much time in extremely close proximity to him

. 

Despite it's flaws, I still enjoyed the book. I think it had some interesting reflections on the role religion can play in a society and the inner conflicts it can incite in people. There was also political intrigue galore and rich cultural worldbuilding. It was fun to see little Easter eggs from Sanderson's other Cosmere books.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Suicide, Religious bigotry, and Misogyny

imbored_soillread's review against another edition

adventurous challenging funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Very very smooth pace for such a long book. Great way to wrap up fantasy as a genre in one singular book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, War, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Death, Sexism, Religious bigotry, and Slavery

anastasiamakes's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Some more top-notch fantasy from Brandon Sanderson. I didn't love it quite as much as Mistborn era 1 - I just didn't gel with one of the POVs and felt myself rushing through those bits to get to the others, and the ending didn't feel as powerful to me - but I appreciated having a little standalone reading 'break' in my Sanderson journey!

Elantris spends more time exploring the politics if and relationships in a fantasy world, more than the magical elements of it, which I personally enjoyed but others may not.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Genocide, and Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Death of parent, Religious bigotry, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Slavery and Suicidal thoughts

iono's review against another edition

mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Confinement, Abandonment, Sexism, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Classism, War, Violence, Xenophobia, Colonisation, and Genocide

Minor: Misogyny, Blood, Slavery, Child death, Death, and Gore

anelya's review against another edition

Why didn't I finish this book? I worry that a better question is, "Why did I start?" I read Warbreaker and the the first Mistborn Era Trilogy first. Already there I chafed at the sexism, the casual and implicit sexism; already in those novels the racism was uncomfortable, the ableism and treatment of neurodivergent characters brought me to frustrated tears. But I was told that these books were wonderful, so I kept trying, waiting for them to get better.

Elantris was the last straw. The sexist comments were every two pages, slowly grinding down the walls I put up against it. The internalised misogyny was so present and so unnecessary; it was repeatedly so heartbreaking to hear the few female characters in the novel tear each other down. The off-hand comments against psychologically-disabled characters made me want to rip up the E-Reader. But what really made me stop and made me finally give up was the racism and slavery.

What is it with Sanderson and slavery? Most importantly, what is it with Sanderson and entire groups of people who either choose to be enslaved or are happy to act as slaves? It already made me feel so gross in the other books, but at around page 200 in Elantris, there was a scene where a child tried to let the enslaved character free, and the character fought back and claimed it was free and just... *SIGH* Yada, yada, different very terrible arguments that don't hold up to a mite of scrutiny. Flawed arguments attempting to legitimise slavery in a novel that claims to be against it. I just couldn't handle it anymore. 

I'm sick and tired of this man's writing. How many groups must he treat terribly before he's through? I am in so much disbelief that so many people support his writing and claim that his representation is even halfway decent. Either he cleared up his whole act for The Stormlight Archive, or people are making excuses for him for some reason. I tried long and hard to see what on earth is worth it in these novels to make the positive points of reading them outweigh all the bad, but it has evaded me. 

I guess if you're a person who can excuse ableism, sexism, misogyny and many layers and types of racism, then this is for you.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Colonisation, Sexism, Misogyny, Racism, Xenophobia, Violence, Slavery, Religious bigotry, Mental illness, Fatphobia, Classism, and Chronic illness