Book Review: Skyward by Brandon Sanderson ★★★★

“I smiled, then realized I was talking to a weird cave slug, which was a new low even for me.”

So excited to finally have read this! It definitely lived up to my expectations. 4.5 stars!! Brandon Sanderson is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors and I can’t wait to read the rest of his books.

I really enjoyed everything about this book. The world building, the lore, the plot, the characters, the dialogue – it was all on point here. And it was funny! The voices of the some of the characters, the tone, the quirks were all hilarious. It was very cheeky and sarcastic in parts because of Spensa and M-Bot, which was thoroughly enjoyable.

I loved the character development that we saw throughout the book, with Spensa and additional characters, too. Sanderson’s character arcs have become much stronger here compared to the Mistborn trilogy. We saw Spensa grow so much as a person in just one book, as well as hints of the other characters doing so. His dialogue has improved as well and feels much more authentic and true to character for each person speaking. He actually captured Spensa’s tone so well here and made it seem very believable! Props.

The plot and world that Sanderson has created here are once again top notch. He is so good at crafting these complex, strong worlds that contain so much history and depth. His plots are very creative and even though this book is YA, it did not fall into any of the trappings of tired or overused tropes. There were some, sure, but they were handled very maturely or turned on their head. This book felt much more nuanced and more developed than many YA sci-fi/fantasies I have read before. And I do believe that is because Sanderson is used to writing for adults. It shows that you can write a compelling novel fit for a YA audience without having to dumb it down or water it down at all. His stakes were high, too! It wasn’t clear how the story would wrap up or who would survive, which I appreciated.

There was a lot of foundation in this first book that makes me think the series will just continue to grow and expand in scope (especially if his other series is any indication). I am very excited to read the rest of the books in this quartet and learn more about this interesting world.

And! While Sanderson does not seem to be the bestttt at writing romance, I was definitely here for the little snippet of it we were given in this book. I hope that continues to develop as well.

Definitely a great book!