Justin's Notes

Apr. 30, 2024

David Grann is such a good writer. This is the second book I have read of his, the first being The Wager, and they have both been great. This book details the murders of the Osage Indian tribe in the 1920s, along with the FBI's investigation, as the FBI was becoming an entity. It is a fascinating piece of history that isn't talked about. It was interesting seeing the accounts of the beginnings of things such as fingerprints being described. Or how the legal system, everything from the government to local police forces, worked back then. And ultimately, how corrupt, greedy, and evil people can be. Grann has a talent for finding the facts and telling a story in a captivating way that keeps me wanting more. I enjoy his writing quite a lot. I am excited to watch the movie and see how it holds up. If you enjoy history or true crime, I can't recommend this enough.

Elantris is about a magical city where once normal humans would go after becoming “god-like”. Eventually, that changed and Elantris became a city full of exiles avoided by the rest of humanity. Overall, I enjoyed this book. It had the classic Sanderson feel to it. Great world-building, interesting and well-designed magic systems, and a cast of characters that felt interesting and relatable.

To be fair here, Elantris is Sanderson's first published fantasy novel. So coming from reading the original Mistborn trilogy, widely accepted as a top fantasy series, to a standalone written early in his career, it was bound to be different. That said, I loved the idea of some force or magic turning people into fallen outcasts. I enjoyed only getting to see an Elantris fading away, letting my imagination fill in the gaps of what the city once was. I felt the relationships between Raoden and the other fallen Elantrians were really cool. It reminded me of how people tend to become closer through hardships and tragedy.

Ultimately, there were two things that made this book not my favorite, especially coming from Mistborn. The magic system in Elantris seemed amazing, but I felt like I barely got to see it. The majority of the book gave us bits and pieces of the magic as Raoden tried to understand it. It wasn't till near the end that we got to see the magic systems in full force. I wish I had seen more of it in use. I also felt like the pacing was a little slow until the end. Sanderson's crazy action writing came, but it took a long time. I would say I had to somewhat push through the first two thirds of the book until I really got sucked in.

All in all, Elantris is pretty cool. If you love Sanderson, I am confident you will still enjoy this book. That said, if you haven't read it yet, I won't spend much energy convincing you to. If you haven't read Sanderson before, go read Mistborn instead. I don't regret reading Elantris at all, but I highly doubt I will read it again.

I thought this book was awesome. It is about a college professor named Jason who is kidnapped and drugged. Waking up, he finds himself in a world and version of his life that are no longer his. This book is so incredibly paced and full of twists that it kept me hooked. It blended science fiction, thriller and even a bit of a love story really well to give an exciting plight for Jason to unwillingly embark on.

Stories with a large amount of twists can often feel manufactured, almost done just to increase the amount of times “something crazy” happens. The twists in this book felt purposeful to me. It was one of the most exciting parts of reading it. That doesn't mean they were all surprising. I found myself a handful of times seeing what was coming, but it didn't detract from how they impacted the story and the characters. I also enjoy the multiple timeline multi-verse concept. Any time I say multi-verse, I assume everyone just thinks of Marvel movies. When multi-verses are done more in a science fiction-type setting, I think the stories are more intriguing. I am confident that if multi-verses existed, my back would be hurting in all the branched timelines of my life. 😅

This is a fun, fast-paced book that I would definitely recommend. It can be a little dark and heavy, but I enjoyed it. It may be one of the fastest reads I have read so far, and I really did have trouble putting it down.