A review by blackberry_coulis
The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

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

3.0

I can't stand Elend and Vin's relationship. I find them insufferable together and I kinda wish he'd died. Lots of telling not showing about their 'love'. He's extremely dismissive of her all the time in a way that I find really annoying and patronizing. Zane's character was interesting, but I found his character more poorly written than most of the other characters we've been introduced to. And Vin thought she loved him? What? I didn't find it super believable how perfectly he manipulated Vin and Straff, considering how smart/crafty/powerful they're both supposed to be. I didn't like the reveal of who had actually been poisoning. Straff either it felt too obvious. I'm assuming we'll circle back to why he had a metal spike in him, but I found it odd that that was never touched on. I liked the concept of the kandra and how their power works. I also really liked the mind control aspect with both the kandra and the koloss. Again, I didn't like the reveal of OreSeur. It felt like a bit of a cheap, low effort reveal to me. I also thought it was very silly that she hadn't thought to look for metal to lead to secret hidey holes for an entire freaking year before they finally found the Well, when literally every powerful thing in this world is metal. I don't understand why this metal is so supremely powerful compared to all of the other metals because all of the other medals have very reasonably sized powers except for this one. I also really didn't like Dockson's continued bigotry about the noblemen. It felt out of character for him and his turn right before his death also felt quite cheap and unearned. I don't understand why the creature can change things in the metalminds of a keeper but not the plaque. I'm hoping book 3 will make me enjoy this more in retrospect, but a lot of this book felt slow while watching characters that I previously liked made worse by their interactions with each other, being very distracted from obvious things by their infatuation, while setting up bigger things.