I have reviewed this book once before however, since re-reading this book, and re-reading my review, I feel my thoughts detailed are lacking.
“Our belief is often strongest when it should be weakest. That is the nature of hope”
The Story
This story follows a young girl named Vin.
Vin is a street urchin. A thief. A skaa.
A person who does whatever it takes to survive in the underworld where anyone will betray you for a few coins, or less and everyone will leave you eventually.
All her life she’s worked with thieving crews. All her life, she’s learned to live in fear. Fear of her brother, of crew leaders, of the men around her. She fears whether they’ll hurt her, or worse – whether they’ll leave her.
Vin lives her life by two philosophies. The first is that anyone will betray you for a few coins, or less. The second: everyone leaves eventually.
After a job goes wrong she meets a man named Kelsier.
Kelsier is unlike any man she has ever met. He is the leader of a crew of thieves, a group Vin is sure is too good to be true. For Kelsier doesn’t use fear or beatings to motivate his crew to get the job done. He trusts them.
And for this job, Kelsier needs the most skilled and trustworthy people he knows. It’s the biggest job the crew have ever taken on. The stakes are high. Untold riches could be the reward, and perhaps something even more valuable: Freedom.
However, should they fail it will mean death of all of them.
My Thoughts
I adored this book.
I’ve wanted to re-read this for a while, and I got the opportunity when I joined a bookclub started by Sazuru on Twitch.
Personally speaking, this book has many elements which I adore in stories. Heists, cons – a group of morally grey characters who come together for a common goal and use their specific set of skills to take on a challenge bigger than they could ever fathom on their own.
The story grips you, even when there’s no action on the page there’s intrigue and suspense.
“How do you ‘accidentally’ kill a noble man in his own mansion?”
“With a knife in the chest. Or, rather, a pair of knives in the chest…”
The characters are all so well developed and you form an attachment to all of them, even some who aren’t in the story for very long.
Something that I really enjoyed about this book is that there was no needless drama. You understand the motivations of every single character and their actions. I remembered this from the first time I read The Final Empire and it’s so refreshing.
I really enjoyed the writing style. There is so much to learn about this world. The politics, the magic system and Sanderson does such a fantastic job of making sure it’s all easily understood, digestible and, most importantly, entertaining.
I’ve once again fallen in love with this story, these characters and the world that Brandon Sanderson has created, and I cannot wait to continue onto The Well of Ascension.
“Plots behind plots, plans behind plans. There was always another secret.”
