This is the first book I’ve tried to read on my own initiative and I’ve restarted it multiple times due to gaps in years of major life events, getting busy, etc. and I want to finish it badly but I’m having trouble.
I love almost everything about this book except for the humor. I’m okay with an easier-to-read novel like one by Brandon Sanderson, but his humor is such a gigantic turn-off that I want to put the book down. It just seems very juvenile, and it actually takes away from the characters feeling “real” for me because this is not how people would talk to each other in real life, and I mean even in just casual conversations. Which is unfortunate because I do really like the characters. But during Shallan’s arc the humor is at its worst.
The first book I’ve read to completion successfully on my own initiative was The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch and I read 400 of its pages in 3 days, I was laughing out loud, so maybe this is a major red flag…
I’m wondering if the humor gets any better with Words of Radiance and later?
by NephewsGonnaNeph
4 Comments
No, lol. Sanderson is a lot of things, but being good at humor isn’t one of them (or dialogue, IMO).
If you’re talking about Shallan. Which you undoubtedly are. In the beginning she is naive and immature. Her “witty” jokes are intended to be cringe because she’s a sheltered rich kid from the sticks.
I can assure you that there is character growth, much less of *her* wit and… well much better wit to come.
From my understanding, no. And honestly, for people getting into reading, I tend to shove them into short stories. Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, any contemporary speculative fiction magazine will be a good place to start. And it’s a good way to build reading habits. To be honest, I think everyone is struggling a bit in this age of short form media.
Sanderson is a YA author and should be labelled as. Simple as that. Everything is juvenile, save some of his concepts working plot and story. His sentence structure, humour as you stated etc, all read as if it is for a teenager.