VictoriaNickers

Now, how can I put this nicely.... it's an easy entertaining read. I certainly enjoy most things about the book... all except for the chalkling things. The writing is brilliant. And honestly, I loved the story as a whole, just when it came to the chalklings being these big scary things that have terrorized the world, I wasn't feeling it. If you took them out and replaced them with some other magical system it would have been a phenomenal story. It just seemed too far fetched. I just did not buy into it. I am not sure if the idea was not fully developed enough in the book but it was lacking something, maybe a detail of the world. 

The characters are fantastic. And the relationships between all them, the social structures and the setting of the novel (minus the chalklings) are amazing. Great characters are a major must. They can really make or break a book for me. They made it very easy to look past the whole chalkling parts. The amount of detail in the defenses used by the Rithmatist are meticulous. It must have taken hours and hours to develop.

This was my first Brandon Sanderson book. I don't know why I do this, but I always try to start off small to help me ease into a well hyped author. It usually always backfires on me. I have done it with several authors lately. If I had read this after I read his Misborn trilogy, I have a feeling I probably would have liked it much more. Definitely will be reading more Brandon Sanderson.