The Well of Ascension

The siege of Luthadel. What a slow-moving, grand and investigative second chapter in this trilogy. 763 pages is undoubtedly a lot, but it seemed to just fly by. After what I thought was a rushed conclusion to The Final Empire, Well of Ascension picks up almost a year later and we find our team of heroes facing a wealth of new problems. The A-plot regarding the capitol's seige by the various noble factions filling the void left by the Lord Ruler did not have much action, but there was a lot of political intrigue and interesting isolated battle moments. The B-plot follows the more magical side of things with the book's namesake, and its ending in particular left me shocked and amazed at Sanderson's subversion of genre tropes. This book is definitely carried by its characters, Vin's doubts, Elend's growth into a king, the new Mistborn Zane and trusted kandra Oreseur. There are definitely some powerful moments in the conclusion and I was left extremely satisfied, but also wanting to take a break before tackling the huge final book. And the tragic action in that conclusion, my goodness. I was hooked.