Reviews tagging 'Torture'

The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

95 reviews

caskraft's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Violence, Grief, Body horror, Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Classism, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Blood, Child abuse, Murder, and Torture

Minor: Infidelity, Death of parent, Child death, Abandonment, Alcohol, and War

nirellis's review against another edition

challenging dark hopeful slow-paced

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

4.75

I have mixed feelings here. Overall I loved this book it got me mourning a whole fictional character which has never happened before. My only problem was that it was quite slow going there in the middle which made it hard to enjoy and there was little to no romance which was a bummer. The payoff from the ending was worth the journey though.

So my specific ratings:
Beginning of the book: 4 stars
Middle of the book: 3 stars
End of the book: 5 stars

“Lord Tyrant. I represent that one thing you've never been able to kill, no matter how hard you try. I am hope.”
- Kelsier 

Kelsier ily <3

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Violence, War, Abandonment, and Death

Moderate: Torture

fox_at_the_circus's review against another edition

adventurous inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.75

I loved this book and the world it was set in. The premise of it is so good and so is the magic system. And the characters are all just so good and well-written. 
Vin and Kelsier as the main characters, a newby and a master, are a great way to give exposure and explain things to the readers, too, without it seeming out of place. And having them both as the POV characters is also a great way to show their relationship developing. And I loved their (father-daughter) relationship and also the other relationships in this book. The heist crew as found family planning a revolution, but also just joking around with each other was so fun to read. And the ball scenes with Vin and Elend were adorable and gave me YA-vibes.
I liked that, with the heist crew and rebellion leader working togethere, there were interesting discussions about what is needed and ethical for a rebellion. And even the crew having varying opinions on it, like Kelsier and Vin treating the skaa guards differently. Also Sazed and his mission to find a fitting belief for everyone and his thoughts on religion as something that suits you rather than fitting yourself into one was really interesting. Both very cool ideas and a fantasy book is such a good place to explore different ideas and views.
Also, the writing was so good! There were scenes in the beginning, that made me wonder about certain truths the world/setting, that later got resolved so perfectly. And also some plot twists where kinda pretictable, but the the real plot twist would be so much more than I could have predicted. Which really made me feel respected as a reader, because the puzzle pieces where all there and it didn't just ocme out of nowhere. And there's questions left open for me to definitely read the other books in the series!

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Violence, Slavery, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Death, Gore, Torture, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, and Body horror

itsjustbethg's review

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

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

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, War, and Abandonment

Moderate: Torture

Minor: Infertility

karolinaxyz's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Murder, Death, Slavery, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Physical abuse and Emotional abuse

Minor: Infertility, Child death, Death of parent, and Torture

risaleel's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark hopeful inspiring fast-paced

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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Slavery, War, Violence, Classism, Physical abuse, Body horror, Death, Genocide, Gore, Torture, and Trafficking

Moderate: Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Abandonment, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Medical content, and Murder

Minor: Bullying, Child death, Death of parent, Sexual assault, Kidnapping, and Sexual harassment

louisallama's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

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

3.5

While I did enjoy this book, and I feel like the ending elevated it from three stars to three and a half stars, I think that it really would have benefited from losing about a hundred pages. 640 pages was just too long and while there was stuff happening the whole time, the book still felt slow paced. Not a specific hundred pages, I just don't think that we needed to see everything in such detail.
I did enjoy the ending, I thought it was a rather satisfying conclusion. I'm not sure Brandon Sanderson is the author for me though, because I personally find his writing very 'telling rather than showing' and while I don't always need a lot of flowery descriptions and deep character introspection, again, 640 pages is a lot to just be told what is happening. If you like books where you just turn your brain off and have the story happen at you, then you'll like this book.
And while I definitely didn't predict all of the plot twists, the one about

Spoiler

the Lord Ruler not being the one who wrote the logbook

was kind of obvious by the time it was revealed.
Also the extreme amount of parallels between

Spoiler

this book and Brandon Sanderson's own Steelheart

just made me kind of mad.

Spoiler

At the end it felt like I'd just read the same book in a different font.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Death, Hate crime, Abandonment, Classism, Genocide, and Slavery

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Physical abuse, Rape, Child death, Emotional abuse, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Blood, Murder, War, and Death of parent

The 16 year old main character gets into a relationship with

Spoiler

a man who is 4-5 years older than her and is a member of the class that oppresses her

elfaz's review

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Violence, Toxic relationship, Torture, Slavery, Religious bigotry, Hate crime, and Forced institutionalization

jodean's review against another edition

adventurous emotional inspiring tense fast-paced

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

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, War, Death, Classism, Murder, Violence, Blood, and Slavery

Moderate: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Racism, Grief, and Physical abuse

Minor: Body horror, Ableism, Abandonment, Body shaming, Child abuse, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, and Torture

caitlinkm's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective tense 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? Yes

3.75

Lots of effort put into magic system and physics behind it. Story set up for some detailed world building likely in later books. Subplots fed into main plot nicely. Would be interested in more female characters (barely passed the Bechdel test) and a more well rounded protagonist.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Classism, Death, Murder, Physical abuse, Violence, and Police brutality

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Religious bigotry, Torture, Grief, Rape, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Slavery, Blood, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Mental illness, and War