Reviews with content warning for Injury/Injury detail - The Final Empire

Having heard many positive reviews about this series and of Brandon Sanderson's writing, I thought I'd start here, as was suggested. Maybe I went into this with too high an expectation, but this didn't really capture my attention past the fifth chapter, but I stuck with it in the hopes that the story would progress or improve. It didn't for me.

There were chapters upon chapters of filler, and seemingly important pieces of plot or development often happened off-page. My favourite characters were the supporting cast pretty much, because they were the only ones with any personality (Dox, Clubs, Spook, Breeze, Ham, Sazed). The whole book was just a grown adult man relying heavily on the capabilities of a 16-17 year old child, and often putting her in harm's way for no reason whatsoever.

Some parts of the story felt either info-dumpy or unfinished, and, at a couple of points, repetitive. There was also the mini romance plotline which was just completely out of place.

Also the ending happened too quickly. After reading 500 pages on what was essentially dialogue (don't even get me started on the amount of times the word "said" was used), politics and "oh woe is me", the ending felt very rushed and as though even Sanderson wanted the story to be over.

However, the magic system was interesting and a great concept, and there was some good camaraderie between the crew members. But that was essentially 100 pages of enjoyment really so idk, maybe I should have DNFed, I'm sorry.

Content Warnings

emmacartlidge's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

boredomandwordsofbooks's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional 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

4.0

This is definitely a world I can see my self doing a full deep dive into, but let's see how the length of the books affects that.

Content Warnings

andrea_lachance's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Solid fantasy read with a simple goal, great story, fun characters, and a great magic system!

Recommended by Carson & gifted by Logan. So glad I finally read a Brandon Sanderson book. I wasn’t really into it at first, but once everything is all set up it gets really good. Love the dynamic between Vin & Kelsier, it’s what I live for. I haven’t read a book with an interesting magic system and good lore in a hot minute and good god is it engaging. I love that my brain was trying to sort out how Inquisitors work and what the Lord Ruler’s deal was. The setups and payoffs are good.

Sanderson knows how to set up a hard magic system with good limits, and it’s really interesting to speculate see how the two different magic systems will play off eachother in the next books.

Love me a knife wife. Vin is a lot like Inej from SoC so I was all-in for her. Love a good female character who has to learn to trust. I really related to her sitting back during a good moment with friends and having that really depressing realization that it’s going to end. She’s so real for that.

Kelsier is literally Jamie Lannister (or Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) in my head because similar character archetypes and ages. Idk man something about a mentor/mentee found family dynamic really does it for me. He’s everything you expect from The Hero. He’s got the look, the attitude, the charisma, the skill. He’s got it all man.

Great book. Simple end goal with a great journey is what makes for a good story and this just hits. Gotta love it.

I represent the thing that you’ve never been able to kill, no matter how hard you try. I am hope.

Content Warnings

loudmouthbooklover's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.75

There was a lot of world building, but I did love the characters in this book and it made me hate characters too. But all in all it was a fun time. Be prepared to get a lot of information to digest but by the end love every second of it.

Content Warnings

More...