Jay
“Pride...it's so often an excuse for people to be weak.”
A wonderful beginning to this trilogy. Foundryside drops you into an interesting society with an even more interesting magic system as it's backbone. You navigate that society, Tevanne, with a delightfuly fucked up cast of characters who are all affected by its issues. Loved it!
"Ninety percent of all problems are caused by people being assholes."
I struggled a bit with this at the start but I realized it was because I was definitely looking for something more action packed after what I had recently finished. Once I settled in, I started to enjoy this quite a bit. I adore the Wayfarer and everyone on it, even Corbin.
"We don't handle this world. We make it handle us."
This is a perfect story to me. There was a point during the previous book where the scope of this story started to worry me with how big things were getting. However, Fonda Lee not only squashed those worries but she knocked this out of the park. I don't think I could've asked for an ending better than this.
The clan is my blood, and the Pillar is its master. On my honor, my life, and my jade.
"You never get to be ready. You just have to move forward anyway."
The Sunlit Man presents an interesting issue where the main character is one that from the current Stormlight Archive books but many years after where we currently are in time. Names and places you know are brought up but you're in a completely different place with a main character that seems new to you. A lot has happened between now and this future. The story and its world gave me a lot of Mad Max vibes and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Nomad is a wonderful character and I felt emotional throughout this. I left with more questions than anything but I think that was by design.
"Change is inevitable, Kaul-jen; the only question is whether we control its direction or become victims of a landslide."
After loving Jade City, it was nice to see how the world opened up in this entry. It doesn't suffer from middle book syndrome and if it did at all, it was just for the opening chapters. The most prevelant thing in the Green Bone Saga is love. Whether its being given, taken away, or betrayed. That feeling is magnified here as Fonda Lee shows us multiple perspectives from our friends in No Peak to those outside of the country. The only things that keeps this from being a 5/5 for me is the pacing was a bit odd at times that it threw me off but it was a wonderful ride still.
“Our weakness doesn't make us weak. Our weakness makes us strong. For we had to carry it all these years.”
This book did a lot of heavy lifting to set things up for book five. Due to the amount of balancing, it feels less balanced compared to the others. Still very enjoyable nonetheless. I loved how much focus previous side characters got in this and that did a lot for the pacing.
“Yes, I began my journey alone, and I ended it alone. But that does not mean that I walked alone.”
There are many paths your journey can take but you must choose a path. I can safely say that this is my favorite entry in the Stormlight Archive so far. I was pulled into every page in Oathbringer and I felt compelled to give it my full attention. I was surprised by how much this book got to me emotionally but so many moments hit me.
“What is the most important step a man can take?”
Genuinely kept me on the edge of my seat throughout and was hard to put down at times. This was a bit of a side excursion for me while I'm in the middle of Stormlight but I ended up putting a pause on my read of Oathbringer due to how good Skyward is getting. Spensa is a real treat to follow as a main character and the supporting cast were all enjoyable in their different ways.
“Honor is dead. But I'll see what I can do.”
Damn. From start to finish, this story had me in its clutches. I thought the first book was excellent, but this one is something greater than that. The way everything comes together in the final part is probably my favorite ending in anything I've read, watched, or played.
Dividing the book into three parts, the first one was hard to get through. It was slow moving and there was a lot of information thrown at me from different perspectives. This isn't a negative outright but it takes a minute before it comes together. The middle part is where that happens and it starts to really pick up. The final part, the ride towards the end was honestly exhilarating. I literally didn't put it down once I hit the last 200 pages.
While I was down on the first sort of the book, Stina Leicht kept me in it with the wonderful characters and their interactions.
There's a lot in Persephone Station and I can't say it was perfect but, in the end, it was definitely a fun ass ride.
I won't lie, early on I was really not feeling it and almost gave up on this. I stuck with it though assuming it'd capture me, and it did. There are different perspectives (of time) and that's what really kept me in it because young Locke's life was very enjoyable. The setup for what goes on with adult Locke ends up being very worth it. Locke and his friends are a delight to be with and the situations they end up in our crazy to say the least. Not the star of the show but a close second, is the city itself. The way Camorr was described throughout the book made it feel more alive than most of the worlds I've experienced. So, despite the slow start, The Lies of Locke Lamora is a captivating and bizarre story that was well worth the read.
Jade City was the story I didn't exactly know I was looking for. Crime fantasy? Hell yeah, sign me up. The story took a few different turns I wasn't expecting, and I came out liking most of them on the other end. There's a lot of players in the story that could make it a little too cluttered, but Lee found a way to make every part of this story perfectly digestible. I didn't love the ending but as a whole Jade City did more than enough to make me excited to pick up Jade War.
I got a lot of mixed feelings about Priory.
I love how much lore and history I got out of this book. I really want more out of this world and hopefully a sequel one day. I enjoyed a lot of the side characters in this to the point of wishing they had more important roles haha. (Specifically, the pirates!)
I'm putting this in the middle cause its part good, part bad: I think the magic in this universe is super interesting, but I felt like it was a letdown a lot of the time when it was used.
The multiple POVs worked for the most part but at times it felt like I spent too much time away from specific characters that could've used more development time. While it did have its hype the ending felt very rushed which was odd in a book that seemed to take its time with everything else. A side effect of maybe the changing POVs and the depth of this book is that I didn't really get attached to many characters on an emotional level, so it made some things fall flat for me.
All-in-all, I liked The Priory of the Orange Tree and I'm looking forward to reading more from Samantha Shannon.
TLM had the unfortunate job of following up on what I believe to be the second-best book of the series, the best in the era. I think it delivered and gave a mostly satisfying conclusion to Era 2 of Mistborn. I talked a lot about the growth of these characters in my review for The Bands of Mourning and in The Lost Metal they truly realize who they are. It got me pretty emotional reading them getting to that point and seeing the different paths they chose for themselves. Honestly, the only part that was really lacking was the ending, but I expected that as I knew this era was more of a transition project than anything. Still, I came away with some of my favorite characters being from the transition project that wasn't supposed to be this big.
Whew, what a book. I had enjoyed Era 2 so far, but I hadn't been thrown a heater like The Final Empire or The Well of Ascension. Well, this is that heater. So much growth happened for the cast and there was never a period where the story dragged. But man, I have SO many questions after finishing this.
I thought it had quite a lot more lulls in the story compared to the other entries, but it always pulled you back in. A lot of growth/potential growth for Wax & co. So many plot threads and stone left unturned heading into the next entry that it felt like a tunnel to the next entry rather than its own. Either way I still had a good time with this and look forward to reading the next.