Book Review: The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson

Read: March 21-23 Verdict: 4 Stars

Joel goes to a school that also caters to students studying to become rithamists - a type of magical warrior that can fight against 'wild chalklings' with their own drawings and measurements (yeah, it sounds weird but it's surprisingly easy enough to get the gist of). When rithmatist students start disappearing in strange circumstances, Joel becomes part of the investigation.

I surprisingly enjoyed this. I was expecting a good story cause I had heard great things about Brandon Sanderson's writing, but I wasn't expecting to be quite so sucked in. The build-up of the world was pretty good, though I thought it was a dystopia type world at first, I think it was actually more of an alternate reality to our world today. The explanations of the different types of circles and lines and defences used by the rithmatists did go a bit over my head. I just saw shapes and my math-hating brain shut off, basically.

Joel was a good protagonist and I really liked his growing relationship with Melody. They never deviated from what I expected of them so their personalities really held firm. I also liked the professors Fitch and Nalizar. I couldn't help but think of Professor Slughorn from Harry Potter when it came to Fitch, that bumbling type of teacher and Nalizar's story arc reminded me a lot of how Harry treated and suspected Snape in the Philosopher's Stone.

I'm really hope another book will come out soon as I really feel there's so much more to come with this story and Joel's story.