2.5 stars

I can't say I loved the first book, but I enjoyed it enough to give the rest of the series a try, and this book killed all the motivation to complete this series. Then, what killed it more, were so many of my friends informing me that I simply do not enjoy "good" world-building, so that's why I didn't like this series. No.

First, Sanderson writes like he is being paid by the word. The longer the book doesn't mean it's a better book. While listening, I was actively cutting out sections to help take this snail's pace of a book and make it more exciting. It feels like Sanderson believes he's in the 1700s and being paid by the word, or, that somehow, more words meant his book is somehow better than anyone else's when it isn't.

He spends so much time "world-building" that he forgets he's writing a book, with a plot. I can't be expected to sit here and listen to hours and hours of wording building with nothing moving the book forward. I'm a BIG Tolkien fan, and even I have problems with the Silmarillion. Boring is boring.

Sadly, I was also not getting into this magic system. I was just rolling with it, but the more I read, the more I didn't like it. It was just so award. Eating the metals, though I understand why, was just too much for me. It was so odd and ended up grossing me out more and more. I love new ways to portray magic, but this was too much for me. I just couldn't get behind it. Maybe the other books will explain more on why metals hold magic, but I'm never going to read them to find out.

Another issue I had was the massive amount of rape in the series. Mistborn's are only born through a noble and a slave, which means all these women are constantly getting raped by noblemen to have a magical child, and that alone is too heartbreaking for me to continue. It made me so uncomfortable to know, and reading this book, knowing that Straff raped SO many women and CHILDREN? It made me too uncomfortable, and I can't read a series where an author is so casual about it. He "villainizes" it by making the people who do that the villains, but it's still there.
I'm a big fan of the TV show Community, and it has a big issue of making racist jokes, but it's OK because the racist character we're supposed to hate says it. That doesn't make it OK. I'm done with rape being a plot device, and rape is such an important part of this whole series.

Then comes the lack of diversity. There are just way too many white people in this series. Everyone is white. High fantasy with only white characters is over and done. The lack of diversity in this series is just disappointing. And more importantly, it needs to be brought up and criticizes. Sanderson needs to step it up in the diversity department. He's been writing for how long? People compliment his world-building as being the best around, but his world-building isn't that good when 90% of his characters are white. Add some PoC characters, then maybe I'll consider picking up a book from him in the future.

Sanderson is barely an OK author that I don't want to pick up. I'm sorry to all my friends that love him. I wanted to love him too, and I hate saying terrible things about something you love, but the fans pushing me and telling me that "You're not reading his books right," "You just don't enjoy complex fantasy," and acting that I'm so below them now because I couldn't get into this "work of art." If people want to insult me for not being able to enjoy a book as they did, then they can hear all the terrible things about their book. I was willing to call it boring and move on, but not anymore. The one thing I did enjoy I can't even enjoy it anymore because the fans ruined that for me too. Gatekeepers suck.