BOOK REVIEW - The Well Of Ascension by BRANDON SANDERSON

PUBLICATION YEAR: 2007 GENRE: Epic Fantasy PAGE COUNT: 763 FORMAT: Paperback BUY ONLINE: amazon

The Well of Ascension : Book 2 of the Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson

This book started a year after the plot of the first book “ The Final Empire “ ended.  It is difficult to review this book without mentioning the plot of the first book. Hence, if you haven’t read the first one yet, this review might spoil you. 

**SPOILERS  AHEAD (if you haven’t read The Final Empire) **

Elend has become the king and Vin is the mistborn who acts like some kind of a body guard to both Elend as well as the empire itself. But contrary to popular belief , all’s not well even after the death of the Dark lord. The empire is under threat. Everyone is trying to attack the city and take over the empire from King Elend . This is due to the rumours which suggest that the empire has a secret storage of “Atium” which is a significant metal that can be used for magical powers. Other than that, there is also this myth about a certain “mist spirit” which is apparently trying to kill people.

 All the characters from the first book have been retained and have meaty substantial roles to play . Vin plays the lead role and we see more of Elend in this book. Sazed, who was my favourite in the first book, plays one of the most significant characters . His parts in the book are my favourite. All the other crew members of Kelsier’s team have become associates to king Elend and we see them grow from being mere theives to people trying to fight the evil.

The addition of fascinating monster like creatures called Koloss and a couple of new characters (Oreseur, Zane,Tindwyl etc.) made this book even more interesting . I absolutely loved the dynamic between Oreseur and Vin. It kind of reminded me of the bond between Sazed and Vin from the first book.  I specifically liked all the bad guys in this book . They were extremely brutal and the most fun to read.

Unfortunately I ended up disliking the other main lead - Elend . I thought he was being too righteous. I still don’t like his love story with Vin. There is absolutely no chemistry between the two. All they do is constantly doubt their relationship and wonder if they are good enough for each other. They rarely spend time with each other let alone have a conversation about their insecurities.

As far as the plot is concerned , it is pretty average. I did not necessarily care enough for most of the mystery subplots . The sub plots concerning  “ Who is the traitor ?” and “ Are mist spirits real?”  did leave a mark but others seemed a bit dragged. Halfway through the book, I realised there is a pattern to the plot which goes like this- “King Elend is threatened by a bad guy due to his stupid righteous decisions , then there are pages and pages of meetings about it . Finally Vin decides  to protect him by killing the bad guy which ultimately leads them to question their actions.” This constant self doubt of the two main leads became annoying after a point.

The pacing of the book was frustrating as well. The  first 100 pages or so were extremely boring and I felt like quitting it but then things started to get interesting and I was hooked till I figured the  pattern to the plot ( which i have mentioned above).  After that, everything seemed relentlessly dragged including the action sequences .  The first book had similar issues but the twists and turns were so masterfully done that I forgave the slow pace. Unfortunately , that is not the case with this one. I thought of quitting this book so many times while reading it . The plot twists in this book were predictable and underwhelming. The fight sequences were written really well but  were so long that I  lost interest.

I did not like this book as much as the first one but there was something that kept me hooked till the end. The political drama , the characters and the magnificient world where the story is based made this book bearable . I think this book  sort of suffers from “ the middle book syndrome” . No doubt it served the purpose of the middle book which was to act like a bridge between the first and final book in the series. The cliffhanger at the end will definitely  tempt you to continue with the series.

RATING- 🌕🌕🌕🌗 ( 3.5/5 )