Mistborn: The Final Empire

With Mistborn being my first proper introduction to the Cosmere as I get ready for Stormlight: Rhythm of War in November, my main positive is the magic system Sanderson sets up for the trilogy. I had to keep flipping back to the reference to get a handle on each aspect of the system, but it's structured rather well and easy to catch on to as you read further. Kelsier and Vin were the highlights of the book, as they should be as the protagonists, and I found myself gravitating towards Elend as well. I think my biggest gripe with the book is that it felt longer than it needed to be. Some scenes should have been refined or removed, in my opinion, to make the story tighter. Also, the setting wasn't as exchanging as I'd thought it would be. The story was more contained to a particular set of people and locations, which is fine, but when references were made to other settings and factions of people, I didn't really get a strong picture of how it was affected by the story. It's one of the reasons why it took me so long to finish the story, and I even considered moving beyond the series as a whole and starting Stormlight, but I'm going to stick to it since the story itself isn't bad and I did end up enjoying the ending. I'd definitely recommend it to people who want to get into Sanderson's work and want an easy way to get into the Cosmere as a whole. It's digestible fantasy that, while slow at times, picks up the pace and delivers an engaging experience.