Reviews with content warning for Gore - The Hero of Ages

This series is... very much a mixed bag for me, which makes it somewhat challenging to rate. It should probably be more like 3.5 stars.

Mistborn's worldbuilding and magic system continued to be excellent and original. However, Sanderson has a nasty habit of overexplaining and not trusting the reader to remember what is going on. Yes, we do remember that Vin is "wearing her usual trousers and shirt and carrying vials of metal with her to replenish her powers." We are hundreds of pages into the third book of the series at this point. All the references to Pushing and Pulling got really tedious, too. You wouldn't describe walking like "he put one foot down and pushed himself forward, then put the other foot down and pushed himself forward again" - but that is what this book often felt like it was doing, when describing Allomantic actions.

As with Book 2, there was often some contradictory morality that felt colored by the author's Mormon faith - perhaps understandable, but sometimes frustrating as a non-religious reader. There are overarching themes of empire and divine right to rule that create some shaky moral high-ground that isn't really challenged, which felt uncomfortable at times. *Why* does Elend have the right to have power over everyone else? And then there are moments like when Vin, our protagonist we're supposed to root for, is fine with killing Yomen's innocent servants if it would have gotten her free.

And then there is Sazed's storyline of dismissing every religion in the world as false, one by one, because they all have internal contradictions - until the big moment that he just... decides to believe in his own people's religion, for no other reason than "he wants to" and "faith isn't about logic, you simply must believe in it." Hmm, okay.

At any rate, it was slow going to get into this book, but it did get more exciting near the end. TenSoon's parts were especially interesting - I find the kandra culture absolutely fascinating. I don't regret reading the Mistborn series by any means, it had a lot of interesting ideas, but overall I found the experience to be an uneven and often frustrating one.

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audrandy93's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

The final book of the trilogy, I felt the story ended is a beautiful way and the magic system grew with the story without the rules changing fundamentally halfway through. A great journey with themes of truth, faith, and hope that felt just a little hamfisted towards the end, but was a central plot driver.

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haskinsc's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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mj_86's review against another edition

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adventurous slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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goobies_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This book was CRAZY, so many things start to unfold and it really starts to pick up! everything starts to make sense and click into place. The ending broke my little heart no happy endings here...

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serena_hien's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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shamaramill's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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