Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

Summary (from Goodreads):

In a world where ash falls from the sky, and mist dominates the night, an evil cloaks the land and stifles all life. The future of the empire rests on the shoulders of a troublemaker and his young apprentice. Together, can they fill the world with color once more?
In Brandon Sanderson's intriguing tale of love, loss, despair and hope, a new kind of magic enters the stage - Allomancy, a magic of the metals.

Review:

So, this is kind of my second adult book reviewed this month! What is going on with me? However, there are two main characters in this book and one is a teenager. So, a lot of this kind of read like a really well put together, incredibly well written YA novel. Also, I had to review this; I just had to. It is probably going down as one of my all time favorite fantasies. Seriously, it is up there with Tamora Pierce, Kristina Cashore, and Mercedes Lackey. This book just blew me away!

Why haven’t more YA fans read this? Seriously, if you are a YA reader that likes fantasy at all, this is a must. A must. It was fantasy, but it was also kind of a dystopia, and kind of a super hero book. There’s an evil dictator that the main characters risk their lives to revolt against. There’s crazy, awesome super powers that revolve around metals. There’s some of the most outrageously awesome characters. There’s thieving crews, revenge missions, battles, balls, magic/metal training, prison escapes, betrayals, class battles, created religions, spying, murder, and pretty much all of anything that could possibly be adventurous and interesting.

I absolutely loved the relationship between the two main characters. And oh my goodness it was awesome to have the two main points of views not be between love interests! Kelsier played more of a mentor type father figure to Vin, and I loved this. It was so wonderful to watch Vin grow from a terrified street urchin to a powerful mistborn. And Kelsier was like a mixture of Aladdin, Robin Hood, and King Arthur all rolled into one. But, add serious levels of vanity. These characters were complex and more interesting than characters I have read in any book in a long time. And even the side characters just kept becoming more and more interesting as the story went on.

There’s also a book within the book that’s also beyond interesting, and I think will have to come into play later in the series. But more than anything, Sanderson created this world that’s unlike anything I’ve read before. The hierarchies in government and alomancy (metal usage) were so genius. And I know I’m not adequately describing how awesome the story is, and it sounds like it would be super complicated, but it wasn’t. Sanderson’s descriptive style expands on all things that would be complicated and paints a picture for anyone to be able to see.

I did kind of predict one aspect to the ending, a big aspect…However, there were so many small things I had no idea were coming. There’s one roof-top battle that had me going “Woa,” out loud. And some of the plot twists were so good, that even though I called some of them, I was still beyond impressed at the author’s ability to fit it all together. The plot twists had to happen because everything was so planned out and I couldn’t have seen things going down in any other way.

So I feel like I’m fangirling/gushing over this book too much. I don’t really have anything negative to say. I’m super glad I bought the box-set of this series because I will be needing to get into book 2 soon. I give this a 10/10. And I really recommend this to any and all fantasy fans.