I just finished the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. It is a book series I have meant to read for a while but never got around to it. I’ve always heard about how famous the author was for writing fantasy, and this is his most famous series. The story is set in an expansive world filled with different religions, cultures, complex political structures, and one of the most intricate magic systems I’ve seen. Learning how the magic in the world works was one of the highlights of the series.

The first book, titled The Final Empire, was definitely my favorite of the trilogy. It centers around a teenage girl named Vin who grew up as a thief in a oppressive kingdom called the Final Empire, ruled by a mysterious immortal figure called the Lord Ruler. She is a skaa, essentially the slave class of people who are treated as subhuman and are killed at the whims of the nobility class. She gets recruited to a crew that plans to overthrow the empire, and learns that she is a powerful magician. I loved the crew’s leader, a magician named Kelsier. He was so charismatic and was the most skilled magician in the book. The magic, called Allomancy, is genetic and only manifests itself rarely. I’m not going to spoil how it works, since discovering that is one of the best parts of the whole series, but it centers around ingesting metals which give you specific powers. The story features descriptive and epic battle scenes, complex politics and social dynamics, and a tiny bit of romance as well. It also has a satisfying ending all by itself.

The second book is about the political turmoil that results from the overthrow of the 1000 year old kingdom. Vin and her friends have to defend their city from the rival leaders that want to rule the empire. This story features more subtle alliances and politics, and is also a little bit of a coming of age story for Vin. That part was a honestly a little annoying as she did super impulsive, stupid things that were obviously terrible ideas.

The final book is written from many different perspectives, with about three different storylines that eventually come together. The world itself is falling apart due to a rampaging god, and Vin and her friends are trying to unite the outer kingdoms to pool resources to try to survive. Many mysteries about the world are solved in this book, especially in the lore paragraphs that are at the beginning of each chapter. I almost liked these little tidbits more than the chapters at points. The constant switching perspectives got to be annoying at times. Some of the chapters were so short or ended on cliff hangers that wouldn’t be resolved for 30 more pages. I didn’t really like the whole “fighting a god” thing, it felt very out of place after the first two books.

Overall the series was really good and I really liked it, with the first book being the main highlight for me. The world and magic in the story was very descriptive, where you were told exactly how it works. I also loved the characters, especially Kelsier and Elend, Vin’s romantic partner. I haven’t read any fantasy books in a while, and forgot how much I enjoyed them. Each book is about 700 pages long, yet I finished the whole series in about 2 months, making it probably one of the fastest 2000 pages I’ve ever read. Fantasy is definitely my favorite genre, and I am such a sucker for romantic subplots. I try to read as diversely as I can, but sometimes I find myself forcing myself to finish books that I’m just not that interested in. Brandon Sanderson wrote a sequel trilogy to this series, and I believe he’s planning to write two more as well. I will definitely read those and seek out other fantasy books in the future.