Similar to my experience reading Book 2, reading this book was not quite what I expected. The first half, or perhaps even the first two thirds of the book were bordering on boring for me. Lots and lots of political machinations, the point of which I still don't quite see regarding the main theme and ultimate resolution of the plot. I also found in very odd that a lot of mysteries are just freely given away in the epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter, seemed a bit clumsy to me. 

Altogether, the Mistborn series didn't quite live up to my expectations, which might be because I had REALLY high expectations considering how Sanderson fans go crazy for this series. It was interesting, had some pretty unique concepts, and lots of great characters. But I would argue that it also has some flaws in its logic, and my suspension of disbelief suffered mildly. I guess part of that has to do with the series' theme of

religion. I've never been a particularly religious person, and have a bit of an aversion to most organized world religions and the crimes they've committed throughout world history. The parallels were a bit too on the nose for me sometimes, but what else could I have expected from a Mormon author?

IMHO, Book 1 was a great book, great setting, intriguing mysteries, high stakes dystopia, really awesome ending. Book 2 was a drag. Book 3 was a mixture of both. But ultimately I'm a bit let down by the issues mentioned above, as well as the plot-twist-for-the-sake-of-having-a-plot-twist. Not mind-blowing, but not bad either.

This book was really not what I expected. I feel like it's very much mistitled. It should be called

The Siege of Luthadel

or something like that, because 90% of the book is just

politics, and IMHO a bit of a drag. Here and there were some interesting tidbits sprinkled throughout that, but allover, I expected this book to be some kind of grand journey, and definitely not 600 pages of cooped out anxiety about being attacked by three armies

. Well, I hope the last book will answer all the questions that I kinda expected this book to answer... 

My one-sentence summary of this book: Norse Mythology inspired X-Men, but with extra sex. This book starts out strong (which is one of the reasons why I picked it up), but towards the middle it became super difficult for me to finish, as I found the story very much unengaging. The book was also another reason for me to realize that romance is just not my genre - it just felt cringe to me most of the time, especially considering all the other stuff that was going on in the plot. 

The worldbuilding was great though, and seemed very accurate to me as a long-time fan of the Norse myths. 

I really enjoyed the characterization of Murderbot here, and as a socially awkward person, I can empathize with a lot of this. However, I expected to like the book a lot more than I did, and thus was kinda let down. I guess the plot didn't captivate me enough, and I often felt my mind wandering while reading this.

I have read this book about 20 years ago in German. After reading Piranesi, I felt it's time for a re-read in the language it was meant to be read in. My experience was very similar: the book has fascinating world-building and is truly *magical*, but at times it's just unbearably slow and full of what feels like filler to me. It would have been a 5/5 with a more focused, less meandering story over 500-600 pages, as opposed to 1006. It only reall gets *exciting* in the last 100 or so pages. I still really like it, and I will definitely re-watch the TV adaptation now as well. 

I enjoyed this sequel to Mythos much more than its predecessor, probably because it tells a much more coherent narrative (or tries to, at least). Mythos was sometimes random and allover the place and hard to follow. This book, however, focuses on a number of Greek heroes and tells their stories in a more or less coherent manner (but still, these myths are very convoluted and intertwined). 

I learned A LOT from reading this book. Most of my knowledge of Greek mythology was superficial, and this really helped me to get a deeper picture of these myths, and especially of how they still shape our society, and very much also our language. 

I have first read this book when I was about 17 years old, which is now more than 20 years ago. Back then, I became interested primarily because of the movies, which were released around that time, and I had a friend who was a big fan. 

Back then I was absolutely not mature or educated enough to appreciate these books for what they are. I thought they were rather tedious and boring to read, and I found the language that they use very, very odd. However, I'm fairly sure that I read the books in German back then, which probably is partially why I thought the language in the books was super weird. 

Fast forward 20 years. I have watched the movies at least 15 times and they remain absolute masterpieces of modern cinema. After my last re-watch, I felt it's about time to read the books again, because I always had so many questions about the lore, and how things happen, etc. 

And what can I say, now that I'm 20 years wiser with a degree in English literature and linguistics, I have not a single doubt left in me that these books are absolute masterpieces. This is THE most fascinating and in-depth worldbuilding I have encountered anywhere in fiction. Every single main character has a backstory and a purpose. The language is absolutely superb. The elaborate explanations that I found tedious as a teenager I now found super interesting. 

Sometimes you just need to live life for a few decades to truly understand and appreciate something.