Shadows of Self

Now this was more like it. After the fun but self-contained Alloy of Law, Shadows of Self becomes a city-based crime thriller with the stakes of Elendel hanging in the balance. There are definite personal threads running through this story as well, this time Sanderson rotates naturally between the trio of Wax, Wayne and Marasi as they hunt a murder causing chaos amongst various class factions. This also greatly increases the depth of worldbuilding this time around, as we see these various groups and their thoughts, concerns and personalities (although over a short time span). Loved the return of the broadsheets and the sense of constant building tension throughout the first two-thirds of the book, which led to an almost inversion of the Final Empire's events (which I thought was very smart). Unfortunately, the conclusion and all its reveals were amazing but felt a bit convenient for me, although undoubtedly setting up the next entry in the series. There was a lot more religious pondering in here, a few more references to the original trilogy and honestly Wax was like a superhero in The Dark Knight with how much political thrilling and chaos was being caused by Bleeder. Very cool and very fun.