A review by hardbackednooks
Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson

adventurous emotional slow-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I wish I could give this two ratings for different parts of the book. I was so incensed by the first third because it was entirely characters saying things like "oh yeah, this happened and this happened, remember when this happened?" as a way of filling in the (still unknown) length of time between Dawnshard/Oathbringer and Rhythm of War. If you ever want a prime example of "tell, don't show," just read that portion. The pacing was off in this book as well compared to others -
there was a huge climax around the middle of the book then it slowed down dramatically until the rush of action between 70-80% of the way through. After that was done, we had another 15% or so of exposition and recovery, then your normal cliffhanger ending. It just felt very dissatisfying to me, as though it wasn't planned out well and he had to scramble to make sure everything was included at the end. Also, to be perfectly blunt, I hated that Jasnah and Wit are a ThingTM.
I did appreciate the bucking of gender norms we saw in this novel compared to others,
though there should have been far more consequence than there was. The political intrigue side of things seems to have completely gone to the wayside.
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