After having this book heavily recommended to me by my best friend, and then also recommended to me by the waiter at Nando’s who spotted my ‘Read Harder’ t-shirt and sparked an awesome conversation about all the books I should read, I had high hopes for this book.

At 650ish pages, it’s not exactly a short book, and I found it kind of slow to get going, which led to me spending the first 100 or so pages thinking that the book would go on forever. But once I got used to the strange concept of Allomancy and the plot started picking up, I was completely and utterly hooked.

When I first read about Allomancy I thought it sounded a bit too weird for my tastes, burning metals to get extra powers. But now I think that the concept is brilliant. I loved the way that it was introduced, us learning about it at the same time as Vin. (Spoiler alerts from here onwards). It kind of made me feel a weird sense of pride in Vin when she turned out to be one of the best Allomancers around, pulling off tricks that even her mentor Kelsier wasn’t capable of.

The book toyed with my emotions more than possibly any book I’ve ever read. The quote on the front seemed like a massive spoiler:

“What if the Dark Lord won?”

Every time something started going awry for Vin or her crew members, my heart was in my mouth hoping that the front of the book wasn’t about to come true. And let me tell you, my heart was up and down like a yo-yo. I’d like to meet Brandon Sanderson and shake my fist at him for playing with me like that.

Especially since way too many things happened that shattered my heart into tiny pieces, for myself and for Vin. After the terrible start she’s had to her life, it all looks like it might be working out for her; she’s found a good crew that treat her right, and shock horror, they even respect her opinions. And then Sanderson cruelly rips holes into her newfound safety blanket and she’s plummeting right back towards the life of a Skaa street urchin again.

But Vin is a vital part in the plan to overthrow the Lord Ruler and free the Skaa from a life of drudging slavery. As I mentioned before, she’s got the makings of one of the greatest Allomancers around, if she can just learn enough to survive.

I don’t really want to give away too many more spoiler alerts because if you haven’t guessed, I’m a little in love with this book and I really think that if you haven’t read it, you should back away from your computer and start reading it immediately.

Also selfishly, the quicker I type this review, the more time I have to start the second book before bed, so I guess that’s it. Read it or miss out on something awesome. I can see this being picked up as another blockbuster film very soon!