Mistborn

Mistborn
by Brandon Sanderson
643 pages, 2006
High School

Today we have something new!  I asked someone I know to do a review of a book he's read recently.  Here's what I got!

Review by Simeon!

Vin’s world is grey and black as the ash continues to fall every single day. The world is always dangerous for a street urchin in one of the largest cities, Luthedal, the seat of the Lord Ruler. She has been living with a street gang with a leader that only uses her as his ‘good luck charm’. However, street gangs and thieves are the least of her problems as rumors spread of a ‘survivor of hathsin’ and a mysterious man shows up to the street gang’s hideout. He uses her ‘luck’ to subdue all of the thieves. Curious, she decides to join them. However, things are stirring as Vin is learns of a daring, almost suicidal, plan that this mysterious man is doing. Can she trust this man enough to both learn her powers and to carry out this plan?

Where to begin with this book?

The characters feel real. Vin starts off not trusting other people. She is only staying with the crew master because he views her as something ‘useful’ and very much a loner. Then she meets Kelsier, where he introduces her to a whole new world, a world where people trust each other. Then Vin begins to change, very slow at first, then quicker until she seems a complete different person at the end of the book, a person that could trust her friends. Also, the banter between the friends is something that will leave you laughing well after you have read it. So, I like to repeat what I have said earlier, the characters feel real.

Also, the magic system is simple! Okay, maybe not as simple, but it was well defined, you know what’s going to happen and how it happens. It has advantages, and disadvantages, and there are ways to get around it. It doesn’t make the characters indestructible, or unbeatable (believe me, Vin gets beat on again and again throughout the whole series) however, it gives them that extra edge in battle that allows them to take on their opponents.

I will say one thing about Mistborn. It is dark. Imagine our world, where the sun is a blazing hot orb that would beat about the world in a wave of heat so suffocating that all life would eventually shrivel up to its relentless heat. Where mountains belch out ash day in and day out, making the sky an ugly grey black color. Ash falling constantly, there is no green plants. The fields are covered in black from the ash, the buildings, black as ash fall upon it day in and day out. The plant life, sick, and near death, struggling to survive in a hostile world. The humans… if noble born, always sneaking around each other in intrigue and sabotage, the workers, or more commonly known as the skaa. Are treated only a little bit better than slaves at best, at worst they are the slaves. Thieves fill the back ways of the most powerful city constantly trying to scrape off a living, stealing from the rich. This is the daily life in Mistborn. Yet despite all of this, the characters try to make it a better world of it. They try to fix it.

I would recommend this book to most people if they were into adventure, dark world’s settings, slightly humor, and a around good book. However, I must make a quick note, I would not recommend this book if people are a little squeamish, there is lots of blood and some rather grotesque killing involve.