The Rithmatist

5 ⭐️

What an amazing book! I’ve said it a million times before but Brandon Sanderson is so talented at creating unique and inspired magic systems. Using chalk to create defenses and chalklings was so cool. It was a good mix between Elantris and like Full Metal Alchemist.

This was pitched to me by Brandon as a book that “seems like it should be a Cosmere book but isn’t.” I fully agree. The chalk lines use Intent very similar to the Cosmere. With a reworking of the setting to not be an alternate Earth, this could 100% be a future Cosmere book.

This book reminded me of Harry Potter but in the best ways. And instead of supporting a TERF and transphobe you support the Mormon church! Idk if that's better but Brandon is definitely more likable than she who shall not be named.

You can include me in the list of people asking for a sequel. It’ll only be. . . 10 years? Until he has time to work on this? That's not too long. I’ll just have my children read the book when it releases.

Sanderson is an incredible author. Here he manages to take the dumbest premise I've ever heard, swirl it together with the plot of 4 of the 7 Harry Potter books, and somehow come out with a great book.

Hopefully, I can construct a coherent review...

I greatly enjoyed the world building, although it left much to be desired as well. Why was the United States turned into isles? Was it to denote separation between what each area did? If so, wouldn't that make the United States disconnected and therefore, not really a nation at all? There was a remark about how the isles mostly governed themselves--so in what sense are they really united?

I blame a lot of the weakness in world building on third person limited POV. There should have been a point in which an omniscient narrator stepped in to describe why the world differed so much and there wasn't. I still don't understand what happened entirely to this alternate Earth and I would have liked to have known more. Rather, it is assumed that the reader is familiar with this Earth because Joel is, and that's not a fair assumption to make.

The steam punk addition was very interesting, albeit one of those "I wonder why the world has adopted that". It added a nice flare, at any rate.

As usual, an ordinary kid finds himself in the midst of extraordinary things...and discovers he remains ordinary. I liked that. It's good that the main character isn't suddenly thrust into greatness by virtue of being the main character. It's a pitfall that a lot of fantasy writers fall into.

However, what I didn't like was that almost the entire book was highly predictable. I saw the major plot twists coming and when I didn't, it was because it was fueled by something I had already predicted. The ones that took me completely by surprise were also the ones because, to quote something online, "The Doctor saved the day...through a plot hole so big you could drive a truck through". To avoid spoilers, I won't speak them aloud. Suffice to say, though, they seemed to have come out of absolutely nowhere.

In terms of things that came out of nowhere, the idea that Rithmatism derives from a church and has nearly driven out almost all competition, left a sour taste in my mouth. I understand that other churches have problems with it because it mixes magic and religion. However, I feel that Sanderson was greatly remiss in completely forgetting Judaism. The main character's name was

Joel, to boot, a traditionally Jewish name.

While we're on the subject of tradition, I wish to divide my next points into two. First, I would like to address the inevitable Harry Potter comparison that always develops from writing any magical school novel. I tend not to see these things as similar, but there were moments, such as Joel prying to discover what Nalizar was reading and feeling inadequate because of his background (coming from poverty, etc). that were entirely too similar. The whole pacing of the book was also like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Nalizar could have turned around and had Voldemort on the back of his head and it wouldn't have surprised me at all. I was very disappointed that this was the case, that even when it appeared as though Nalizar could have been vindicated, he was the villain we thought he was. That's sloppy writing.

The writing was greatly helped by the illustrations. In some cases, it compensated for poor suspension of disbelief throughout the novel. The chalklings, which are in my mind a combination of Chalkzone creatures ("Rudy's got the chalk!") and DoodleBob, seemed too weak to pose the danger that the narration stated they did. Not until I saw the chalklings actually attack someone in the illustrations was it possible to actually believe the descriptions...and this leaves me uneasy.

When the entire premise of your book hinges on something that I have a hard time believing, it falls apart. I read this book because I wanted a quick read and I thought it'd be good. It seems that, yet again, I disagree with GoodReads reviews. Alas.

On the plus side, it wasn't the complete train wreck that

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children was.

I think this would have normally gotten a three from me, but sometimes you just read the book your brain needs at the right time. That said, everyone always blathers on about Sanderson's unique worldbuilding, so I'm not going to do that except to say that I've never seen any magic system that involves drawing with magic chalk. It's almost like Dungeons & Dragons brought halfway to life. Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt!

Sanderson does a great job of writing for teens while keeping his dedicated adult audience engaged. There is a good, involved story that wraps up with a couple great twists, while still leaving lots of room for future books. I enjoyed the illustrations and found them easier to follow than detailed explanation of Pushing v. Pulling v. I don't even remember that whole metal thing.

Lightning bolt!

Resumen: Un misterio en un mundo de magia.

Pero el misterio no es interesante como para hacer un buen libro de misterio.

La magia tambien es un poco meh.

Como otros han dicho, debería haber puesto esto en un colegio, chicos de 12 años y haber cortado material. Si le quitas 100 paginas a este libro te queda un libro perfecto para chicos de 10 años.

Tal y como es, no funciona bien para ninguna edad.

Dang it....

I went into this book knowing that Sanderson had published it quite a while ago and still didn’t have a sequel, but even I didn’t imagine that the wait would be ELEVEN FREAKING YEARS!! Still no announcement for a sequel, and my heart is broken.

I’m giving this book four stars instead of five because, while I thoroughly enjoyed the book as a whole, I wasn’t entirely sold on Joel’s character. I think my favorite character was actually Prof. Fitch, to be honest. I don’t think it’s any fault of Joel’s character that made him not quite enough for me. My preference in characters simply isn’t along the lines of what his character is like.