Yuffie's Book Reviews

The Rithmatist - by Brandon Sanderson

--Published Book--

(First off, look at that gorgeous cover!)

This book is Harry Potter meets Fullmetal Alchemist.

To explain the story, we need to start with the magic system. There are a chosen few people who become Rithmatists. Rithmatists are able to draw glyphs using chalk, and those glyphs come to life. I absolutely won't be able to do this justice since it's so intricate, but I'll try to explain the basics. So you draw a Circle of Warding around yourself. The more perfect your drawing is, the more stable and powerful it is. Any imperfections (for example, a Line of Forbiddence isn't perfectly straight) are weak points and are subject to attack and breach. You can attack using the squiggly Lines of Vigor or creatures called chalklings (chalklings can be anything from unicorns to knights or dragons).

But these things take actual form and can affect the real world as well. Wild chalklings will eat human flesh and rip them apart. No one can physically walk through or over a Line of Forbiddence.

In the isle of Nebrask, there's a huge ongoing war between humans and wild chalkings. No one knows who first drew them or where they keep coming from, but the Rithmatists are all trained to fight and contain the wild chalklings. Every Rithmatist student is shipped away to Nebrask during their final year of schooling to train there before getting sent to the front lines.

Now the actual story: sixteen-year-old Joel is INFATUATED and OBSESSED with Rithmatics. The only problem is he missed the inception date when he was 8 years old and lost his chance at becoming a Rithmatist.

Joel isn't the most likable protagonist. He's arrogant, constantly talking about Rithmatists to the point where he gets slightly annoying, and a huge show-off (he secretly studies Rithmatics so much that he's better at it than most Rithmatic students. But his lines can't come to life, so there's an issue). He's actually a closet genius (he can do math problems in his head when they should take at least 5 minutes on paper). He's lazy and doesn't apply himself, which gets him in trouble with his professors. From a writer's standpoint, this leaves a lot of room for growth, and throughout the story, he does "fix" a few of these flaws and grows as a character, which is really good.

Eventually he talks his way into getting tutored by a Rithmatist professor, and there he meets another Rithmatist girl named Melody. She's the complete opposite. Whereas Joel's life meaning is Rithmatics yet he can't be a Rithmatist himself, Melody is a Rithmatist who hates being one and sucks at it. Her drawing of Rithmatic glyphs is atrocious. They make good foils for each other. Neither is the most pleasurable character (frankly, they were a bit annoying most of the time), but they work well as protagonists and are able to carry the plot foward.

Despite their likability, the magic system was so freaking awesome (as I said before, I can't do it justice in an explanation. You have to read it for yourself) and absolutely compensated. If you read this book, it's for the sheer creativity and intricacy of the magic system. At the head of each chapter is a page with Rithmatic diagrams and explantions, teaching you various defenses and what all the lines mean, strategries, etc. Like mini-lessons. Usually what came in these mini-lessons featured in the chapter, which was very helpful and cool and kept out jarring explantions and info-dumps in the narration itself. I honestly felt like I was learning a real-life thing, like I was sitting in school (only much more fun because MAGICAL CHALK DRAWINGS!). It was interesting!

Oh, and there are actual pictures in this book! Well, pencil sketches of Rithmatic lines and chalklings. They're tiny little sketches showing up every so often. It was very helpful to have that visual (plus, I just love pictures /innerchildyay) and definitely added to the whole experience. I just love the way the whole magic system was presented in this book. Very unique and creative!

Now we'll switch gears away from the magic and characters and talk a little about the world. The story takes place in an alternate world--the United Isles of America. America is broken up into islands! Just the map on the inside cover is fantastically cool! It's a steampunk/gearpunk story, but those elements definitely aren't overpowering if you're not into them. They just added a flare to the world that I definitely appreciate. So overall, the world building was well done.

I'm going to jump back to the plot now (aren't I great with organizing this review?). The first hundred-odd pages introduces us to Joel and his Rithmatist identity crisis. He's always sneaking into Rithmatic classes and getting in trouble. There was a fantastic scene starting out with a duel between two Rithmatic professors, which was pretty emotional because of how bad you felt for the professor who was losing. Honestly, I barely knew the guy for 2 pages and my heart was wrenching for him during the duel, and that's what got me really hooked on the story. Really well done characterization!

Beyond that, however, the book takes on a more leisurely and slow pace. Joel ambled about, trying not to get expelled for his failing grades, learning Rithmatics, dealing with Melody's high-strung personality, etc. There wasn't too many exciting things happening, and I can't even concretely remember what happened even though I read it two days ago. It wasn't boring, but it wasn't heart-pounding, on-the-edge-of-my-seat, page-turning awesomeness either. It was just eh. As I said before, the magic system is what kept me reading because it was so interesting and I wanted to learn more.

But then get halfway through, and oh, my god, the jump in my interest level. A kidnapping/murder mystery started picking up momentum. It's so different from a typical murder mystery becuase of how it involves the Rithmatic system. No other story could emulate the same way the kidnappings/murders happened because these were done with chalk drawings. And at the crime scenes, they found mysterious symbols that weren't Rithmatic lines, and Rithmatic students had gone missing and even with their parents two rooms down no one heard, and then the sheer amount of chalkings present... You need to read this to understand how unique this was.

And the climax. Holy crap that was the most heart-pounding thing I've read in a long time. And it was with chalk drawings. Sanderson is utterly fantastic with action scenes. My heart was in my throat during the entire climax. And certain scenes were EPIC. I heard epic music playing in my head as this one character showed up. I got so immersed into the story during the last 100 pages. I forgot I was reading words, and I couldn't put the book down. And the ending chapter--oh, I was grinning ear-to-ear. SO COOL. I won't say more than that. I'm fangirling over how epic this was. And with chalk drawings.

BRANDON SANDERSON MADE CHALK DRAWINGS EPIC.

^That basically sums up this story, actually.

And a word on the writing--fantastic. I had a couple tiny nitpicks in some sentence structures, occasional uses of filtering, but I was paying REALLY close attention and picking apart his style, trying to figure out what makes it so good. The writing flows so well and naturally. I still don't know how he does it, because any time I tried to analyze his writing, I got sucked into the story and forgot to analyze. And when an author can get my inner editor to shut down completely, THAT is the sign of a brilliant writer.

Overall, the beginning was exceptional, the middle was a bit slow and uneventful, but the last 100 pages were some of the best I've ever read. The magic system is phenomenally creative and presented in such a unique way. I'm in love with it. I highly recommend this book to anyone who's fascinated by unique magic systems.

It looks like this is going to become a series (it ended with To Be Continued...), so I can't wait to get my hands on Book 2 when it's released. I imagine it's going to be chock-full of action now that the initial set-up of the world and magic system is out of the way in this first book.

5/5 stars