by Brandon Sanderson

Feeling quite reluctant to write something about this book because I was annoyed as I read (slowly since it didn’t pull me in as the first volume did.) But, I have to keep a record and now am writing a brief note on it: Sanderson does not seem to trust that the readers would remember details from earlier in the same book so there is an unnecessary amount of recaps that just distracted me from enjoying the plot line. I thought most of the device to hide crucial information from the readers was effective but also quite obvious. Besides, although I understand that Sanderson didn’t want to follow the fantasy hero novel tropes to have a huge and triumphant payoff at the end of the novel, especially since this is the middle volume and, hopefully the victory will eventually come at the end of Book 3, I was quite disgusted by the “trickery” and the demoralizing defeat at the end of this arc. (And this is from someone who usually appreciates an author’s realistic rendering of events, even in a fantasy novel with powerful magical beings.) I have to wait for a while to read the final installment and it had better be worth my time then!