Tuesday, May 2, 2017

[Review] The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson

The Rithmatist (The Rithmatist, #1)The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommended for lovers of Harry Potter, Charlie Bones, and Fullmetal Alchemist.

One sentence review
An intriguing world full of mystery, though not on par with Harry Potter, the series has great potential.


YA? or MG?
I have to say I was a little confused when this book was classed as an "Young Adult (YA)" novel. The book was correctly classified if the classification was solely based on the age of the character, which to me seemed a little misleading. In the book, Joel is around 16 years old. However, the mannerism of Joel differed from a lot of the YA novels on the market. The YA market has changed drastically from JK Rowling's Harry Potter series. Harry Potter in its day and age was classified as an YA novel. However, typical YA novels nowadays tend to dramatize the teenage time period, adding lots of angst, whether in the form of love-triangles, or life crisis etc. Brandon Sanderson did not take that approach. He did write the book as if every YA had to be a soap opera. The book was focused on the mystery and not on the romantic conflicts of the protagonists. It made be start thinking, should books like Harry Potter (if published this year) and books like The Rithmatists be classified as an YA? Would it be more appropriate to classified them as MG instead?

That all said, I thoroughly enjoy a novel that read like The Rithmatist as it did not bring in any unnecessary drama. It was very refreshing.

Plot and Characters
This novel was very well planned and hook me to its mystery by the pages. It is not as detailed and well laid out as the Harry Potter series, however, it was very enjoyable to read. The twists and turns were predictable, however, the ending left me craving more. The need to understand more of the world Brandon had build cannot be satisfied. I see great potential in this series as it can branch off in my different ways as I am still left with lots of questions. Other academies? Nebrask? The origin of the Rithmatist? Joel's father? Melody's family? Certain other characters' backgrounds?

Joel was a fun character to read. He did reinforced the fact that he loved the world the rithmatists lived in, however, it wasn't annoying to hear him talked about it. The passion he had really came through and helped me understood his drive.

Melody on the other hand could have been a disaster of a character. An outcast who was loud and flamboyant could have easily been a character that I hated. However, Melody was incredibly entertaining to read. A cute little ball of sunshine!

Fun-sies:
- The illustrations within the book was fantastic! It really helped visual the world where everything was dominated by chalk drawing. I highly recommend readers to read the book instead of listening to the audiobook/

- Between each chapter, there were drawings that gave the readers background knowledge to the world of the Rithmatist. It really reminded me of how Death Note explained the rules of the notebook b/w segments after commercial breaks.
The Rithmatist Line Explaination

Death Note Rules

This is also similar to how Attack on Titan reveal a little information each time between breaks.
Death Note Rules

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