Mistborn and Vicious – Review

I recently read two fantasy/sci-fi novels and really enjoyed reading them. Please let me know if you have read these books or are planning to read these books and what you felt about them.

A brief review of both these books –

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

I was little (not much) disappointed with this book since I had wayyy too many expectations. I expected it to be exceptional because of all the reviews I had read earlier. It is not exceptional but it is good. It had been quite sometime since I read a fantasy book which was this good.

Positives:

1. The magic system(called Allomancy here) and the world building – it was mind-blowing. I have hardly read books where the world building was this awesome. Allomancy and Mistborn are so cool! I even wished I was a mistborn. The first 1/3 part of the book was the best part of the book mainly because Brandon explains this amazing world where this story takes place. Also the world is unique and very different from all the others we have read about in other books.

2. Characters – I liked every single character in the book, even the insignificant ones. Everyone was likeable but they had their own flaws too. I particularly liked Kelsier. He was a great character and at the end of the book, my respect for that man just got doubled. Vin was also a great character and her character saw the most growth in this book. At the starting of the book, she is a shy girl who is not brave and doesn’t trust people. Towards the end of the book, she is completely different.

3. Romance – I never thought I would say this. I usually despise romance and find most of the romantic stories cheesy but the romance in this book wasn’t forced and was actually cute.

4. Twists and suspense: 75% of the book had no twists or suspense elements. But the last 100 pages of the book were amazing. Fast paced and full of twists, the last 1/3rd part of the book was great.

Negatives:

1. Plot: the basic plot of the book is good but the story moves very slowly and for most part of the book, nothing significant happens that drives the plot. At least one half of the book is full of discussions and conversations with not much of action. It got boring in the middle of the book to the point that I did not feel like proceeding.

2. Writing: the book is entertaining but the writing isn’t that great. After a point, I was fed up of reading “rolled his/her eyes”. Every other character was rolling eyes.

If you can somehow get through the middle portion of the book, it is a good book. I loved the first 1/3rd and the last 1/3rd portion of the book. I loved Kelsier and all the scenes where he was present. Not a great fan of Vin though so not sure if I want to proceed with this series.

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

AMAZING book! Even before I reached 1/4th of the book, I knew it would be a 5 star read and no less. This is a book about extraordinary(EO) people. It is better to read this book without reading or learning a lot about the story as any more information can act as a spoiler for this book. If you like superheroes and/or X-men, then you should definitely read this book. It was action packed with lots of plot twists and even the climax was great. The writing was great too with some awesome dialogues. The female characters, which I thought won’t be there in the book initially were totally kickass. Everything about this book was awesome. I want to read more about Victor Vale!!! He ended up becoming one of my favorite characters. I wish they would convert this into a graphical novel and this book would make a nice Hollywood movie too. I want to now read more books by this author.

One of my favorite quotes from this book –

I also read Warm Up, which is a prequel to Vicious and loved it too.

This is an EO story which has one of the main characters from Vicious (just as I expected it to be). This series is now one of my favorites. This built up world with EOs is too interesting. I am desperately waiting for a sequel to Vicious.