Shawn Braden

For whatever reason, this book felt like hundreds of pages of great writing where seemingly nothing happened until the middle and the end, and I don't know what happened. I remember feeling like I wasted several hours of my time, because these books are so hyped and this one, at least, didn't deliver.

The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving medieval England (phew) was a great and easy read. I loved the relationship between the main cast, I loved the internal conflict of the main character, I loved the moral of the story, I loved the clever twist on gods and men, and I loved basically everything about it. Spoiler free: the main conflict was engaging and compelling, the main protagonist and antagonists were clever and fun to read, the resolution to the story was satisfying and brilliant as always with Brandon's books, and the best thing about the book is the relationships between the main cast. So authentic and beautifully written. And surprisingly, i found myself cracking up throughout the entire story. So many clever and fun things were turned on their heads.

The ONLY thing that I wish was done better or we had more of was the importance of the missing pages. I feel like that petered out and became irrelevant, and a promise was made that was unfulfilled. I was waiting for the cathartic final page to be discovered somewhere casual or in plain sight that had the moral to the story or the answer to all the questions raised, and it just never came. Maybe the rest of the pre-jump survey or something. Don't get me wrong, I loved everything else, but this was the one thing that was promised and never delivered, which is rare in a Sanderson book.

The Sunlit Man was a pleasant surprise for me. It took me a long time to realize Nomad was a character from the Stormlight Archives, and that I actually knew him! I ended up googling everything about Hoid and Nomad and etc etc. It was a wonderful time.

The book itself was well paced, engaging, interesting, and fun. I loved the clever world and how Brandon built it up, I loved the scientific explanations for all the weird and fantastical nonsense of the world, I loved that the setting was as much of a character as the characters were, and I loved the cathartic release I got from how beautifully everything was tied up. These four books (the secret ones) are probably my favorites of Sandersons even having read Stormlight Archive and Mistborn (first trilogy, my previous favorites of all time). Tress is still number one, but I also haven't read Yumi yet.

No complaints. 5 stars. Would read again.

I can say without a shadow of a doubt that “Tress of the Emerald Sea” is one of my all time favorite books. Perhaps the best book I've ever read. It has the magical whimsy of Harry Potter, the adventure of The Pricess Bride and The Lies of Locke Lamora, and the tight, well written story that I've come know from Brandon Sanderson. It doesn't have the slow, hard to get through parts his stories sometimes do at the beginning, and it's beautifully written. I didn't want to put it down, and it never felt slow or meandering. Just... perfect.

This book started out great. I was excited to see where everything went next... and then the pacing fell off a cliff. I don't know what happened, the first two books were fantastic. I lost the motivation to continue reading at some point. I made it over halfway through, but it was just missing something to keep me engaged. I will restart this series at some point, but for now, 2 stars for the DNF. This is probably my most critical review of a Sanderson book.