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A review by stuckinpermafrost
Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson
adventurous
dark
tense
4.0
The more Sanderson books I read, the more I’m able to pinpoint the aspects of them I don’t really like (keep in mind I’m giving this 4 stars! bear with me!). I think the Stormlight books are overly long, and you could cut them in half and they’d still be great. When I think of what specific events happened in this book, it doesn’t feel like enough happened to make it need over 1300 pages! A lot of the detail exists to flesh out the world — I love how many side characters get a POV, even characters we see once and will never see again — but some of it just feels unnecessary, even repetitive. The writing style isn’t anything special, either, which I know is a common criticism of Sanderson’s work. It gets the job done but it isn’t overly pretty. Some of the dialogue can feel a bit stilted too, especially when it’s trying to be funny or romantic.
That being said, something about these books still really draws me in. I love the characters (although one main character in particular is getting a bit tiring for me, and from what I’ve heard I don’t think that’ll change in the next books). I love the story, and I love how the twists are built up to and don’t just come out of nowhere. This isn’t literary fantasy, but it doesn’t really intend to be. I know exactly what parts of Sanderson’s writing I don’t really like, and because of that I guess I can kind of just look past it.
One of the things I didn’t love about the first book was how almost every main character was just on their own, not interacting with the other protagonists much, if at all. They interacted much more in Words of Radiance, and in this book they were finally pretty much all together!
That being said, something about these books still really draws me in. I love the characters (although one main character in particular is getting a bit tiring for me, and from what I’ve heard I don’t think that’ll change in the next books). I love the story, and I love how the twists are built up to and don’t just come out of nowhere. This isn’t literary fantasy, but it doesn’t really intend to be. I know exactly what parts of Sanderson’s writing I don’t really like, and because of that I guess I can kind of just look past it.
One of the things I didn’t love about the first book was how almost every main character was just on their own, not interacting with the other protagonists much, if at all. They interacted much more in Words of Radiance, and in this book they were finally pretty much all together!