Mistborn - Brandon Sanderson

As many of our nights blogging start out, this is a quasi-Dr. Night.  I started with a nitro beer (crunchy yet oddly satisfying (THATS A LION KING REFERENCE!)) and then moved on to a pinot noir that I got from trader joes for probably about five dollars (solid choice.  TJ's has good wine, also cheeses for anyone in the market).

SPOILER FREE SUMMARY:
This book is a ton of fun.  The basic premise is that a limited number of people can burn metals to give them super powers.  The book is about a group of people who are technically slaves who decide that they're going to defeat the Lord Ruler (functionally a god) to take over the capital of their country.  There's a lot more nuance to the situation but this is spoiler free and I dont' want to accidentally give anything away so that might be the best you get.  The group is made up of a bunch of people who can use different kinds of metal (most people who can use metal can only use one kind exept for a few who can use all the metal (THE MISTBORNS (GASP THE NAME CAME FROM SOMEWHERE))).  So it's all these people who came from an impoverished background trying to break the system.

SPOILER FREE REVIEW:
So this book started out super slow.  Sam absolutely loves this book and has tried to get me to read this book since we moved in together a year ago.  I've put it off because I've been reading other books she suggested but clealry have worked my way through that list....  So this book starts slowly and as I said its the kind of book wehre I kind of wanted to know what what was going to happen next but didnt' feel the need to really know, and then you get about halfway in and holy shit did I need to know what hapened.  The history of the Lord Ruler was so effortlyessly woven into the rest of the plot that I wanted to know what happened to him, and the foreshadowing was amazing (to the point wehre I normally pick up on stuff but completely missed this). Basically, this book takes place over about a year and I really liked the pace because while some things seemed to happen fairly quickly it's still an elongated timeline which makes a lot of the seemingly abrupt changes more understandable becasue we miss a month or two here and there.  Honestly a couple of the characters are more caricatures, or outlines of characters where they don't necessarily have the depth to be real people (i.e. a little two dimensional) but the story is so good that that doesn't really matter all that much.  I realized I shoudl probably mention characters.  Kelsier is a Mistborn (who can control all the forms of metal) his crew doesn't seem particularly important, but Vin is his mentor.  There are characters in their thieving gang (Like Breeze, or Clubs, or Spook, or Ham who show up but I don't feel like expounding upon here.) there's Eland who is the son of one of the Major Houses, and the Lord Ruler who is functionally a God.  Obviously the crew are the people helping Kelsier attempt to oust the Lord Rule (who yet again is basically a god and immortal)


SPOILERED REVIEW
Here's your warning,   Spoilers follow

So I might have been a little bit spoiled in this book because Sam mentioned to Parker that a "character who dies in this book has a continued arc" in a novella and it's clear by chapter two who dies. So I spent a lot of the book knowing who died, which meant at the point where Kelsier, Vin's teacher, dies I had been waiting for it since chapter 2.... but the book is amazing. other than failing the Bechdel test (why are all other women other than Vin evil?) But I was pleasantly surprised by a lot of this book. I hadn't picked up on the fact that the Lord Ruler was a Ferruchmancer (or whateever the hell they were, I don't care enough to look it up). I hadn't picked up on the fact that Kelsier had his secret plan to make himself a martyr even though I knew he was going to die. But the book overall was kind of amazing even though I kind of felt like the romance was a little unnecessary.

RATING
So this book earns like a 4.5 out of 5 shots.  This book  had a few weaknesses in character that were made up for by the plot which was a lot of fun and maybe made me think about how much needed to be overcome to get rid of slavery in this country.... but I haven't mentione dthat yet so I'm not sure the end of the review is the right time

ALCOHOL MATCH
This book is a drink that sneaks up on you.  Maybe a Tom Collins or a Vodka Collins because you start reading it and think it won't get to you but them, BAM it hits you and you can't put it down.