Review: Mistborn Book 3: Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson (SPOILERS)

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR MISTBORN BOOKS 1 AND 2; MODERATE HINTS FOR BOOK 3

Author: Brandon Sanderson

Genre: YA Dystopian Fantasy

Pages: 748

Rating: 2.5 stars

This is going to be a short review because I can't say much without big spoilers, and also because I'm annoyed about the book.

I'm so disappointed with this goddamn book! I got so invested into this series, and stayed with it even as Book 2 got kinda weird (though honestly I liked all the political scheming that so many other people hated). But this book just ruined it and made the whole series worse.

First, the good. Frustratingly, I can only hint because nearly all of these are massive spoilers (can you tell from my overuse of the word 'reveal'?). I have a review with more spoilers (within a spoiler tag) on Goodreads here. 

• Learning more kandra lore was very interesting, so I enjoyed TenSoon's arc, and also the kandra reveal near the end.
• The Spook arc was brilliant - I loved that, and the whole Kelsier aspect (Spook idolises him) and reveal. 
• Hemalurgy! Super interesting to learn about how the magic works and to think where metal spikes might be found...
• Vin-Elend as a badass warrior power couple was kinda cool.
• The reveal about mistsickness was brilliant.
• The Marsh arc, especially with the earring, was great.
• The Yomen arc was quite interesting - seeing his true belief in the Lord Ruler and his struggle to come to terms with the death of his God. It was nice that he wasn't just a one-sided villain, and that he was quite clever even without being a mistborn.

The dubious:

• The Lord Ruler's image rehabilitation continued from the second book.
• The totalitarian rule in Urteau and murder of those with noble blood seemed like a caricature of Communism.
• Argh Sazed just because you're castrated doesn't make you not a man! This shouldn't have been said once, never mind loads of times, never mind being crucial to the plot!
• The emphasis on 'sixteen' made no sense. And stop adding more metals to the world! It makes the existing ones less cool and dilutes everything.
• As someone pointed out over on Goodreads, everyone was neatly coupled up into heterosexual pairings by the end, which seems a bit unrealistic. 

The bad: 

• I was honestly bored during a lot of the 'core' plot (which I'm defining as the plot involving Elend and Vin, since they were the previous main characters) - the subplots were a lot more interesting.
• Vin and Elend barely had a relationship even though they're married now. I get that they're at war but why bother having the relationship if you're not going to show it?
• The scope got waaay too big. Never get gods involved! Things just felt so much less personal and I lost interest in the characters because things became completely abstract.
• The play on words in the ending didn't even make sense and seemed like a way to get out of a problem.
• The whole thing seems to be a thinly-veiled Mormon story! This is what ruined it for me. I got so invested in it and it was just evangelism. What the hell?

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I'm honestly so sad about the turn this story took, and especially betrayed by the Mormonism; it became my favourite series with the first two books, and then just shot itself in the head in the last. 2.5 stars.