3.5 I guess.



Well if this isn't the biggest disappointment of the year then... Then I have some worrisome months ahead 😨



I would like to start this by apologizing to all the hardworking people that put a lot of time and effort into this book, I’m sorry I didn’t like this book as much as I hoped.



Before I start you should know that I love this series, that I went in with high expectations and that I been meaning to read this for the last 8 months. It’s always amazing to be back to this world and I l

[ there are no significant deaths in this series so far! I actually started hoping Odium takes Dalinar, I was rooting for the bad guys and I even wanted Kaladin to lose someone he cares for to see how his character takes it. (hide spoiler)

[like how Dalinar basically faced a god and won! He literally holds worlds in his hands now! (hide spoiler)

Well if this isn't the biggest disappointment of the year then... Then I have some worrisome months ahead 😨I would like to start this by apologizing to all the hardworking people that put a lot of time and effort into this book, I’m sorry I didn’t like this book as much as I hoped.Before I start you should know that I love this series, that I went in with high expectations and that I been meaning to read this for the last 8 months. It’s always amazing to be back to this world and I love how I forget myself in it.I love the writing and the characters and the plot, I love how the reveals are subtle and the endings are explosive. All this was amazing in the previous 2 books and some of it still holds in the third book. But it’s not the same, this book is just different, and not in a good way.If I must give just one reason it’d be this, I think Sanderson spread himself too thin with this one, I think he tried to do many things and incorporate too many Cosmere books and references but unfortunately, that meant he sacrificed a lot of the things I love.There’s a lot of small reasons why I didn’t enjoy this rather than just one big reason tho. It’s the pacing of the book, it’s the choices that I don’t understand why they have been made, it’s what I hoped for vs what I got and it’s what I hated in book 2 made bigger and worse this time.So I’ll start with the end of Words of Radiance. After finishing that book I made a tiny list (and by that I mean a list of 2 things) of what I hope to see in Oathbringer, not only did I not get what I want I kinda got the opposite and the things I hated in WoR were even more detailed in this one.I loved him in WoR I wanted more of him and more than that, I wanted a good character development, one that only Sanderson could do. Not only Renarin was absolutely ignored but at the end his character changed so abruptly that I actually had to stop to wonder if this really happening (again not in a good way), why was that? Who came up with the idea to only give him a few pages at the end? I have no idea. Now maybe Renarin gets his own book in the future, maybe he even saves the world and becomes emperor, who knows? But I still didn’t get my Renarin chapters and I didn’t like what happened at the end with him.What makes this worse is that other minor characters got their own chapters and not to mention the interludes that go into random characters in some random place, I like the interludes, but I won’t sacrifice Renarin for them.To be honest I don’t know if I hate what happened with him more or what happened with Moash and Teft, I really really would’ve loved if Renarin and Moash switched places, I do not mean plot-wise but the time devoted to their characters, I think I would’ve preferred to see Renarin’s character slowly developing and Moash coming out of nowhere and doing what he did. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case and I ended up hating both, the one I liked got no scenes and the one I didn’t care much about got scenes but the change was rushed and didn’t feel real to me.After WoR I thought we’d get the character development of the ages, maybe that was unrealistic of me but something about Elhokar succeeding just felt right and for once in fantasy I hoped that the (somewhat) bad king actually gets a redeeming arc and learn from his mistakes. I won’t say anything more to not spoil you, I just didn’t like Elhokar’s development and found it very cheap.The things I didn’t like from book 2 that were even worse in this book are.I DO NOT like love triangles, especially and most importantly useless stupid ones! Yes I get that characters have feelings, yes sometimes it’s good to explore more about what would these characters do if such and such happens, all that is fine, however 2 things I absolutely do not agree with, one is a character that romanticizes cheating, and the other is a character realizes that there’s a relationship between two and ignores it bc well he’s in love and that’s all the excuse they need to act upon their feelings. Thank goodness the first one didn’t happen or else I’ll be writing an entirely different review. The second one did happen tho and it’s THE ABSOLUTE WORSE when your favorite, and I mean bestest characters in the series! Use that as an excuse to start a stupid romance with a stupid character nevertheless.Anyway, I’m just glad it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been.I also didn’t like Dalinar and Navani in book 2 and that continued to the beginning of this one but at the end I was too mad at the other romance to care for this and I actually got over it once they worked that issue.Well technically I do like that it’s long it’s part of the fun of it and the writing is great to forget yourself in it but yeah there were moments were I just didn’t care about who’s talking or what’s happening, this was even more so in Oathbringer, some parts were just insignificant considering what happens at the end, literally the end of the world is coming soon but the actions of these characters doesn’t sound like they are really trying to prevent it, I mean the enemy is mobilizing forces and gathering supply and numbers but all Dalinar does is send one guy to scout, then send a small group to retake a city and he keeps chatting with other nations that don’t want to talk to him. I was comparing this to Empire of Storms in the sense that both were trying to get nations on their side and gather armies, and EoS did a better job imo, it did an even better job considering we had glimpses to what the enemy was trying to do unlike here which kept that info hidden till nearing the end.I get that Dalinar isn’t into politics and he really was trying but come on dude, you have a guy that can literally fly why were you insisting that they come to you, you could’ve went to them, and his solution to that problem was one of the things I thought about from the very first chapters!This makes me want to talk about these characters and how at times they were kinda stupid if I’m being honest.-Relain, no one asked him about the parshmen and we didn’t hear from him after that one time at the beginning, maybe he knows nothing but guess what? You know less than nothing so every information he gives you is important.-(WoR spoiler here) (view spoiler) knows about Shadesmar and it’s a freakin entire world but no let’s not ask the thousand years old spren there. The group didn’t do that either.-Some things are just too convenient, like Shallan’s weaving doesn’t draw the voidbringers but Kaladin does (hopefully this would be explained in the nest books)-Dalinar and everyone really just takes what the stormfather says even tho he’s a shadow of a spren and half his memories are gone. There are books, read them and do your research!-No one thought of asking the Shin people even tho the assassin was from there!-The secret societies in this world, you idiots know they know something so why not seek them or infiltrate them!Also I had a huge problem with Kaladin in this book, I love him and maybe this is why I’m hard on him but my gosh can he be annoying at times, I mean I get it you want to save everyone, that’s great and I love you for it, but you also CAN’T SAVE EVERYONE! People will die! I liked his struggle in book 1 and even more so in book 2, but now it just feels like he’s repeating the same thing, maybe you should do what your father said and become a surgeon if you don’t know who to fight. After 3 long books I was hoping he’s over that now, especially that he gets attached too easily to people and it was unrealistic what he’s trying to do.As I mentioned before the pacing of this book was off for me, I like that these books end with explosive endings but this one felt forced. I think for me it felt like that bc as I said the character's focus was on so many things at the start and suddenly at the end everything is concentrated on one place.I do not understand why somethings were handled the way they have been, I mainly mean the investigation Adolin was handed but also Kaladin visiting his family and leaving like that, Shallan and her brothers were never mentioned until the very end, and I thought Ialai's character was SO weak in this one compared to the other two books, both her and Amaram. I thought for sure they'd have a bigger role and present some problems for Dalinar but he managed to do that all in his own, they actually kinda helped him by not asking more about the investigation and just accepted what he gave them.Lastly what I hope is the next books explain more about some of the things that just don't make sense, (view spoiler) I believe that’s all. The potential in this series was high and still is but I’d be lying if I don’t say that it took a plunge with this book, I mean this was on top of my all time favorite high fantasy books, now tho I don’t know if it can be on the top 5, and the problem is that I’m thinking of series that I never read but I’m sure would be better than this.