/lit/ - Literature

>>17283669
ok, I just finished Elantris last night. And it's just plain bad. Everyone should stop recommending this book. Stop it. No. Bad.

I also just learned that it's Sanderson's first published novel. So I have to cut him some slack. But it is incredibly amateurish.

Like I said in previous posts, the book over explains everything. There's no mystery, there's no intrigue, there's no wonder. Because Sanderson leaves no stone unturned. He shows you every trick he has as he's telling the story. Like a magician revealing his magic. Or better yet, like a kid who was told to show his work on a quiz. He reiterates every point from every possible angle, so as to avoid any possible misunderstanding by the reader.

And he doesn't explain things twice. He explains them twice, three times, four times throughout the book. He hits you over the head with foreshadowing. The character he HEAVILY implied was going to betray his master at the beginning of the book, betrayed his master at the end of the book. You knew it was coming without question. But it still took about 24 hours to get there.(24 hours in audio book time, not read time)

The entire plot revolved around the reawakening of magic. So you're just waiting 26 hours before the characters finally discover the secret to reawakening the magic. And then the book is over only an hour after that. Which was such a let down. Sanderson technically wrapped up all of the plotlines. Bringing everything to a logical conclusion. But the problem is that it's all logic and no finesse.

Sanderson is like that one guy who has a ton of notes for a book he's *going* to write. But hasn't actually written. Synopses and character profiles and maps and thousands of years worth of world lore. But then the book he actually attempts to write is trash. Elantris is basically just the outline of his story along with notes regarding motivations and logic, literally transposed into verse.

I cannot stress enough how boring this book is.