WarBreaker

Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson is a book of epic proportions. The novel centers around a turbulent time between two rival nations, the Idrians and the Hallendren, where they are on the verge of war. In hopes to stop this from happening the Idrians send women, the youngest daughter of the chief, to go and wed the God King of Hallendren, who is presumably the most evil man who walked the earth.  The novel is quite interesting and one thing that made it so was that the story was being told through multiple viewpoints.

By breaking up the story between that of three different protagonists, Sanderson was able to create a world with believable details and create interesting sub stories that all led up to the final conflict. Siri’s adventure in the Court of Gods sees her interacting and experiencing the life of a god through the eyes of a country girl. This led to sub plot of an innocent girl, trying to survive in a not innocent environment filled with lies and deceit. Another story was told through her sister, a haughty woman who ends up on the streets of Hallendren, to incite rebel and war efforts against the kingdom of Hallendren. The last story is told through the eyes of a god, or a god that believes that he himself is not a good and is fighting with that belief as he goes through the daily rituals and problems that a god has to face.

The story itself was very interesting, but if you read to the end you may end up feeling let down at the ending of this novel. (SPOILER ALERT), the ending of the novel where Vasher tells you what basically happened and fills all the plot holes of the book, seemed patched together in the last minute in attempt to finish the book without any holes missing. The events that led to it also seemed half assed, where Dent basically betrays Vivenna seemed to happen with no prior event leading up to it. It just sort of happened. There was no indication at all that this betrayal was going to happen and thus, we sort of feel left out of the mystery because there was no revelation at the end that all those things he was doing was even hinting the fact that he was going to betray her.

The Magician King

The Magician King was an interesting but ultimately unsatisfying sequel to the Harry Potter/Narnia crossover book of The Magicians Apprentice. Though interesting on its own right, it doesn’t capture the same, or nearly as an effective, to the strife’s of a teenager trying to find his way in the world. Granted, that is because the main character is no longer a teenager, it loses the essence of what made the first novel so great.

                What makes the Magician King engrossing to read however is that it the character is extremely relatable if you are in your teens to early adult. This is because he is basically the avatar and a stereotype of a young adult, with all the ups and downs of early adulthood, put into a magical world that is resonate with many of the readers in this books demographic. When reading, it almost feels like as if you were in one of your childhood dreams, except that you are sex crazed 20 year old that doesn’t know what to do with his life.

                Ultimately, what made the novel not live up the expectation and grandeur of the first is it’s story progression. There was a never a moment in the book where it felt like it picked up and the hero was thrust into a new adventure. This is due to the fact that the book slowly doles out excitement in small sugar packets that get you hyperactive for a moment, but never really gives you the energy needed to sustain you through the day. Though these sweet moments made me keep going, in hope of a giant jawbreaker size event to occur, it never really happened.

                Nevertheless, Grossman did write a jewel in the rough with the history of one of the most mysterious characters in the first novel, Julia. Her account and biography on the events occurring while Quentin was in college was harrowing, disturbing, and downright amazing. Though definitely he just got a story of a cocaine addict and just threw some magic dust in there, the story was an interesting take on how the loss, or denial, of magic threw whole life into disarray.