Reviews tagging 'Xenophobia'

The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

16 reviews

dragonbornsandwaffles's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

It lulls for the first third of the book or so while he's worldbuilding, but once things started to pick up, I quickly couldn't put it down. It's a very intense gritty fantasy (see content warnings for details - it's...a lot), and the characterization is so good that they feel like old friends. It does have a shock twist at the end, so if you don't like those, I'd stay away. It made me absolutely bawl like a baby for a good hour after I finished it. Fantastic book!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, Murder, Gore, Police brutality, Grief, Genocide, Violence, Abandonment, Death, Body horror, and War

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Colonisation, Child abuse, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Xenophobia, and Racism

Minor: Alcohol, Racial slurs, Rape, Trafficking, Sexual assault, Addiction, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, Vomit, Torture, Cannibalism, Confinement, and Stalking

maulikki's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad 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

4.5

The whole time reading this book I had a sense of regret for not finding this when I was in my most active reading years, around 12 or 13. It would've made a larger impact of me, even as I think as an adult I can definitely get more out of it now than I would've as a teenager. I see why this has been recommended to me, the book and the storytelling felt real in a way I seldom encounter. Of course it's very subjective, and I understand why to someone this might fall into the "yet another female protagonist's adventure with magic and learning lessons" category of books saturated with the ACOTAR-like books many of us don't enjoy in the slightest. This books has the it factor of fantasy books. No idea how to describe how and why, someone way smarter than me has probably put it in words somewhere on the internet. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Slavery, Classism, Colonisation, Death, Murder, Racism, Genocide, and Grief

Moderate: Physical abuse, Violence, War, Bullying, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Blood, Cursing, Child death, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual violence, and Torture

vigil's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

1.0

i powered through after dnfing this and i can’t say if it was worth it or not. this could’ve been five stars if brandon wasn’t such a mormon about it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Violence, Body horror, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Slavery, Torture, Xenophobia, Blood, Genocide, and War

unwise_samwise's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Torture, Slavery, Xenophobia, and War

Moderate: Sexual assault and Sexual violence

looking4thedr's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

It definitely took a while to get to the end of this book, but I found myself getting attached to the characters (Sazed in particular, he’s great) and enjoyed seeing their flaws as they went about their plan, especially Kelsir. I throughly enjoyed the occasional playful banter, which helped to alleviate the darkness within the main story.

Sanderson, I feel, always does world-building quite well, slowly revealing more about the world and it’s magic system through the eyes of the characters, especially the main ones of Vin and Kelsir in this case. Kelsir is experienced with the world’s magic system, as are the rest of his crew, and we listen to their explanation as Vin does, as a new comer to this part of the world.

Vin’s character is definitely interesting. Her growth through the story

that she gradually begins overcomes her fear of abandonment and betrayal

is definitely satisfying to watch, as is Kelsir’s main flaw

his hatred of noblemen that Vin sort of helps him to overcome too, to see them as actual people

.

The descriptions conjured up a very clear image in my mind, as though I were watching a movie, although at some points it became almost a little cliche, at some points being like a YA film (and not in a good way)

especially at the end when we find out who the Lord Ruler really is and what his weakness is. That went quite fast my mind was a bit boggled. That may have been how it was supposed to be, but it still had me  confused. A moment that stuck out was when his bracers flew out the window when the sun rose was very cinematic, I still can’t decide whether I liked it or not, but it was still satisfying.

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Apart from that I throughly enjoyed this book and will continue to read the rest of the series to find out what happens next.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Gore, Murder, Slavery, and Violence

Moderate: Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Grief, and Body horror

Minor: Sexual assault and Xenophobia

ohmygourd's review against another edition

adventurous emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Physical abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Xenophobia, Grief, and Police brutality

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Rape, Slavery, and Torture

It's all high fantasy, so the things like police brutality, torture, body horror are all ~fantasy version~