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desiree930 's review for:
Elantris
by Brandon Sanderson
Well, I did it.
Listen, this book is fine. There are things about it that I really appreciate. As far as female protagonists go, I greatly prefer Sarene to Vin. I really love the premise of this book and I like the relationship between Raoden and Sarene. But my goodness. This is far too long. Every single time I thought the pace was going to pick up and we were going to get some fun action, it came to a grounding halt.
I usually enjoy books with intricate political intrigue, but I just could not get into this like I wanted. For starters, I felt like there were too many characters. Perhaps if I'd been reading the physical copy of this book I would've had an easier time of keeping them all straight, but I just found myself confused most times.
I wish more of the book had taken place in Elantris itself. Some of my favorite sections were when Sarene was in Elantris with Raoden, working to make conditions better and getting to know each other as well. When it went back to Hrathen and that whole story, I was almost immediately bored.
I also find it kind of ridiculous that there is only one female character of consequence in this book. There is a subplot in the first part of the book that entailed Sarene trying to teach the women of the court to be more independent and self-sufficient, but it was forgotten by the midway point of the book and after that we hardly saw them at all.
I guess my main problem with this book is that it needed to be trimmed down. There wasn't enough entertaining plot for 622 pages.
I do think it's possible that my issues with this book could also be explained by the audiobook. The voice actor just did nothing for me whatsoever. I felt like his narration sounded more like he was giving a history report and less like he was telling a story. The voices he used for the male characters were okay, but not great, and he didn't even try with Sarene's voice.
I know that this was Brandon Sanderson's first published work, and it's obvious that he has a great talent, but I feel like this book just isn't as strong as some of his others.
Listen, this book is fine. There are things about it that I really appreciate. As far as female protagonists go, I greatly prefer Sarene to Vin. I really love the premise of this book and I like the relationship between Raoden and Sarene. But my goodness. This is far too long. Every single time I thought the pace was going to pick up and we were going to get some fun action, it came to a grounding halt.
I usually enjoy books with intricate political intrigue, but I just could not get into this like I wanted. For starters, I felt like there were too many characters. Perhaps if I'd been reading the physical copy of this book I would've had an easier time of keeping them all straight, but I just found myself confused most times.
I wish more of the book had taken place in Elantris itself. Some of my favorite sections were when Sarene was in Elantris with Raoden, working to make conditions better and getting to know each other as well. When it went back to Hrathen and that whole story, I was almost immediately bored.
I also find it kind of ridiculous that there is only one female character of consequence in this book. There is a subplot in the first part of the book that entailed Sarene trying to teach the women of the court to be more independent and self-sufficient, but it was forgotten by the midway point of the book and after that we hardly saw them at all.
I guess my main problem with this book is that it needed to be trimmed down. There wasn't enough entertaining plot for 622 pages.
I do think it's possible that my issues with this book could also be explained by the audiobook. The voice actor just did nothing for me whatsoever. I felt like his narration sounded more like he was giving a history report and less like he was telling a story. The voices he used for the male characters were okay, but not great, and he didn't even try with Sarene's voice.
I know that this was Brandon Sanderson's first published work, and it's obvious that he has a great talent, but I feel like this book just isn't as strong as some of his others.