The Well of Ascension (Mistborn # 2), Brandon Sanderson

The Mistborn series is a great fantasy series with an interesting twist on magic. Instead of powers being something that magicians, wizards, or mages have, in The Final Empire, they are metal based powers that only a few can access. Drinking pewter makes you unnaturally strong and almost unkillable, copper enhances all your senses to super human proportions... Of those who can access these metal based powers, most can only access one. Only the Mistborn can access and use all the metals, which is what Vin, the heroine, can do.

The second book in the series picks up not long after the death of The Lord Ruler. The Final Empire is in chaos and trying to establish who is in charge and what that means for everyone else. While the first book in this series focused solely on Vin and her journey to unlocking her powers and trusting people again after life on the streets. The second book focuses much more heavily on politics and her relationship with the on again off again king, Elend.

I didn't enjoy this book as much as the first one. While the first in the series suffered from moments of painful predictability when it came to Vin and Elend falling in love and the sometimes stereotypical way Sanderson had Vin "feeling like a girl", this book lagged. More often than not Elend was being punished for ding the good or right thing rather than the politically smart thing. Vin constantly seemed to know nothing about what was going on and while Sanderson may have wanted it to appear as if bigger things were at play and converging on Vin, it just made her seem unable to figure anything out and too easily manipulated. Not to mention the "twist" at the end came a little too much out of left field. There was no build up that would make me feel that "ah! Yes! That makes sense!" Instead it was a curve-ball that made the whole book feel too much like that place holder story that far too many trilogies fall into.

The best parts of this story was when they put politics aside and managed to figure out that they were all being played by Elend's father. When the good guys were actually doing something rather than just verbally shrugging and waiting for things to happen rather than making them happen for themselves. I will definitely be finishing the series but, at the end of the day, The Well of Ascension left me wanting more and not in a good way which lead to my 3 out of 5 star rating.