I read this book more than a month ago, and it somehow got lost in the shuffle. Which is weird, because I quie enjoyed it.
This is a world driven mad by superpowers gifted to a select few. Instead of an idyllic world of good vs evil, however, Sanderson has created a world where the superpowered beings have become our dominant and oppressive overlords. They’ve set up centers of power, where the most mighty can attract underlings to do their bidding. Instead of Superman helping to stem the tide of evil in Metropolis, he instead rules the city as his private kingdom. This series is about regular people fighting back against the human gods occupying their cities.
I think reviewing these kinds of books isn’t my strongest quality. Like John Scalzi’s books, I struggle to really know what to say. They are enjoyable, and I eagerly await the next book in the series, but there’s really no analysis required. It’s like trying to review Chipotle. I mean, it’s good. Really. I eat there fairly regularly. But, what do you really say about it? It’s not life-changing, and it’s not even something you have to work for. It’s quick, and easy, and pleasurable.
It may be that the sheer prevalence of these kinds of books is what makes them so unremarkable. It’s not often I blindly read something. I’m not a fast reader, so if I’m going to put the time into a book, it’s generally because it was recommended by someone whose opinion I trust. Brandon Sanderson is one of the leading figures in the Fantasy genre, and these books (this is part 2 in his Reckoners series) are fairly well-liked. So it’s not likely that I’m going to hate the fiction books I actually take the time to read.
So, no panegyrics to this novel. It was highly enjoyable, just like Steelheart, the first in the series. I eagerly await the follow-up (which, I think, comes out in January). I recommend it to all fans of the genre.
But I think the days of me getting blown away by the enjoyability of a book might be in my rearview mirror. I’ve become inured to things that are simply good.
“I’ve become inured to things that are simply good.”
This is because you have probably stopped reading things that are not good. There are SO MANY bad YA books in this genre. This book is heads and tails above the rest.
That’s very true. And it’s hard to force myself to read things that aren’t good, which just exacerbates my problem.
I should bite the bullet and read Twilight.
Really, even the first Twilight is not all that bad. The first one is really quite interesting if you look at it from an analytical POV, with the Gothic inspirations of love and death running through the book, and while Bella is incredibly frustrating, the book captures infatuation, and the obsessive qualities of first love quite well.
If you want examples of generic YA fiction that is really popular, but oh so dull, try Fallen by Lauren Kate or Beautiful Creatures by Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia. Frankly Divergent by Veronica Roth also qualifies.
I liked the first Divergent book, but the second two were terrible.
I just thought it was so blatantly obvious that the so-called ruling system set up would never have worked for more than about a decade, tops. Also – I found Tris frustrating and Four unbearable. I have no intention of watching any of the films or reading the sequels.
I don’t know how to read uninteresting or bad books.
I recently started a book by Herbert Hoover. It was his magnum opus, and he worked on it throughout the last couple decades of his life. It’s basically 1200 pages of why FDR was a terrible president.
Apart from throwing massive amounts of shade defeated his bid for re-election (only to become one of the celebrated presidents in history) the book is just….terrible. I made it about 130 pages before giving up.
I don’t know how you do it, is what I’m saying.
I feel like reading widely means you’re inevitably going to come across bad books. Most of the bad books I read tend to be popular ones that I’m super curious about. The Twilight books for example, not good, but especially the last one, interesting. I don’t think anyone LIKES reading bad books.