A review by genny
Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson

adventurous mysterious 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? Yes

3.75

My first Sanderson! Is this classified as adult fantasy? Because it feels very YA to me, and I don't mean that in a bad way. Maybe it's just his writing style - this ultimately felt like an easy, "light" read despite the length. Sometimes it was a little too unsubtle, particularly in Vivenna's chapters where she flat-out tells the reader how she has changed as a character. It felt like the author didn't trust the readers to figure these things out on their own. Vivenna still ended up as my favorite character, the writing just took me out of the story sometimes.

Although I found Lightsong very tiring at first (obviously that was intentional, but still, I winced when his POV came up), I grew to really like his character by the end. Nightblood though?! What an annoying sword 😩 I understand it's for comedic relief, but I found its little quips corny most of the time. I could feel my eye twitching like a cartoon character's every time it "spoke". Siri and Susebron were very sweet.
It was odd at first because Susebron is at least 50 years old, yet very childlike in some ways. I couldn't decide if he was too old or too young (mentally) for Siri 😅 They quickly felt like equals though. In other news, does Siri not know about withdrawal? The calendar method? 💀


The plot twist halfway through...man, I was bamboozled. I felt betrayed. Sanderson got me there. He got me good.
The whole point of the story was to subvert expectations, and I still got tricked. I realized that Denth was a deeper, more important character than I first thought, but I didn't suspect he was a VILLAIN! Heck, I thought he was a potential love interest for Vivenna. Man. Of course, there's another plot twist, that regarding Pahn Kahl, which was logical but didn't make as much of an impact on me. The statues turning out to be Kalad's Phantoms was very obvious.
I didn't realize there was an appendix until I finished the story. I have to admit...I couldn't be bothered to read it, or to care much about all the rules regarding Breath. 🤷🏽‍♀️ I enjoyed my time with this, I simply wasn't as amazed as I thought I'd be considering how popular Sanderson is.
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