Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by keybladium
Oathbringer Part Two by Brandon Sanderson
3.0
7.5/10 (I wish there were .5 ratings so it doesn’t look so low)
Theoretically, this should’ve been the greatest book in the series with how words of radiance set it up with a vast amount of interesting concepts to explore but this book felt like it rarely made any advancements nor explored much and in comparison to the first books, it’s just really underwhelming.
The biggest problem for me was how all the really interesting things set up mostly happen in the background and behind the scenes, they’ll mostly be exposition in speeches and through conversations that give you an understanding of what’s happening but it’s never really explored much. And when it is explored, the chapters usually last for 4-6 pages before shifting back to the 8272271616th chapter of shallan having an identity crisis.
That’s another main issue for me, it felt like 80% of this book revolved around shallan and her identity. The concept is not bad and I did enjoy it in the previous book as it gives her more character and an arc she can go through, however this was the theme of her chapters in the previous book so it’s nothing new aside from it getting worse progressively and I don’t think it needed as much focus when the entire world has changed and it facing it’s end. I like Shallan as a character and I find her to have some of the most fun interactions and dialogue but this book slowly made me annoyed with her just because of how much it felt it centered around her (which could just be a me problem) but it felt like every other character got so little focus in comparison which made me feel a little annoyed when there was another shallan chapter. I just wish there was a wider focus on the world changing and everything with the radiants instead of what we got.
I also found the whole shadesmare part to be confusing. Maybe I’m misremembering from the prior books but I felt like it was a much different concept and opened up a couple plot holes that didn’t make sense however the book did start to pick up around then so there’s that.
It really did feel like a majority of this book had little focus and moved slowly compared to the other book. I feel like most of the chapters could be cut entirely and I would still have the same understanding of the ending and the characters.
But there were definitely some strong moments (especially the ending entirely) and there were some really cool and great moments but it felt like those moments were rare and they never last long and it was just frustrating especially considering how balanced the first 2 books were.
But the entire last part was a 10/10. I was really tempted to rate it higher just for that but I still think 200 pages out of 1000 isn’t enough justification. But it was really really really good and it definitely delivered a very large scale battle with lots of very cool things happening and just the entire world felt so alive as they always did in the other books. Sanderson really knows how to write a great ending that sets up a lot and it restored all my faith back into the series even though this was the weakest book.
Overall, I did still enjoy the book despite my mostly negative review, I was just disappointed with how much potential it had and it just didn’t live up to the hype that the prior books had. I love the series and words of radiance is still my all time favourite book and I still like this one, it was just underwhelming in comparison.
Theoretically, this should’ve been the greatest book in the series with how words of radiance set it up with a vast amount of interesting concepts to explore but this book felt like it rarely made any advancements nor explored much and in comparison to the first books, it’s just really underwhelming.
The biggest problem for me was how all the really interesting things set up mostly happen in the background and behind the scenes, they’ll mostly be exposition in speeches and through conversations that give you an understanding of what’s happening but it’s never really explored much. And when it is explored, the chapters usually last for 4-6 pages before shifting back to the 8272271616th chapter of shallan having an identity crisis.
That’s another main issue for me, it felt like 80% of this book revolved around shallan and her identity. The concept is not bad and I did enjoy it in the previous book as it gives her more character and an arc she can go through, however this was the theme of her chapters in the previous book so it’s nothing new aside from it getting worse progressively and I don’t think it needed as much focus when the entire world has changed and it facing it’s end. I like Shallan as a character and I find her to have some of the most fun interactions and dialogue but this book slowly made me annoyed with her just because of how much it felt it centered around her (which could just be a me problem) but it felt like every other character got so little focus in comparison which made me feel a little annoyed when there was another shallan chapter. I just wish there was a wider focus on the world changing and everything with the radiants instead of what we got.
I also found the whole shadesmare part to be confusing. Maybe I’m misremembering from the prior books but I felt like it was a much different concept and opened up a couple plot holes that didn’t make sense however the book did start to pick up around then so there’s that.
It really did feel like a majority of this book had little focus and moved slowly compared to the other book. I feel like most of the chapters could be cut entirely and I would still have the same understanding of the ending and the characters.
But there were definitely some strong moments (especially the ending entirely) and there were some really cool and great moments but it felt like those moments were rare and they never last long and it was just frustrating especially considering how balanced the first 2 books were.
But the entire last part was a 10/10. I was really tempted to rate it higher just for that but I still think 200 pages out of 1000 isn’t enough justification. But it was really really really good and it definitely delivered a very large scale battle with lots of very cool things happening and just the entire world felt so alive as they always did in the other books. Sanderson really knows how to write a great ending that sets up a lot and it restored all my faith back into the series even though this was the weakest book.
Overall, I did still enjoy the book despite my mostly negative review, I was just disappointed with how much potential it had and it just didn’t live up to the hype that the prior books had. I love the series and words of radiance is still my all time favourite book and I still like this one, it was just underwhelming in comparison.