Reading in release order, finished Hero of ages. My thoughts on the cosmere so far!

Hello everyone!
I started reading the cosmere back in february with Elantris. Then started Mistborn, finished Hero of Ages a couple of days ago. Here are my thoughts so far:

I really liked Elantris.

I didn't like Raoden and Sarene as characters, they were too "perfect", which I get that's what Brandon was going for, but it just didn't work for me. I liked Hrathen a lot tho. I think he is very similar to Sazed which I love too. I think these characters portray Brandon's views on religion very well.

However, I think the real protagonist of Elantris is, well, Elantris. The world building and the sense of its history shaping the world and its events is Brandon's strength and what will drive me to read the entire Cosmere.

I also liked the politicing, the strategies, the conspiracies, I think it was fun and well done mostly.

The ending was very fun, and a lot of its reveals and plot twists worked really well.

The magic system was kind of a let down, since I read everywhere about Brandon's hard magic systems and this one is kind of in the softer side. I wish the "reveal" about the chasm had been hinted a bit more since it felt a bit out of nowhere, although I liked it.

The romance was a bit rushed and uninteresting, but it wasn't a big part of the book so no big deal.

I liked the Final Empire a bit less.

Although Vin and Kelsier were way more interesting than Rao and Sarene, their journey was, in my opinion, a lot messier and harder to "believe". Like, I have to trust these random guys can overthrow the government with no real idea how to kill or capture the lord ruler? I read everywhere that it was a heist story but it didn't feel much like it, honestly. Elend in this book is also a bit uninteresting and the romance was still a bit weird.

Sazed was great tho, probably my favorite character of the series. The rest of the cast was also cool, maybe a bit one-dimentional so far, but not every character has to be super complex. Breeze is also a character I love, and he only gets better in the following books.

I've got to admit I teared up a bit with Kelsier's letter to Vin.

I really liked the worldbuilding here too, but sadly a lot of information is kept out and reserved for the next books, and I would've loved a bit more, since it is what I enjoy the most in these books.

The magic systems were def an improvement over Elantris, although some action scenes are a bit awkward to read. Feruchemy is better in this regard.

There are a lot of things that felt like asspulls, but they get explained in later books, making The Final Empire retroactively better when you finish the trilogy. I loved that, actually.
I see a lot of people recommend mistborn 1 as a standalone, suggesting to continue with the others only if they liked it. But I think it's a lot weaker as a standalone, and I'd probably recommend Elantris on its own and Mistborn series if they liked Elantris.

The Well of Ascension was great

It was very similar in tone to Elantris. A lot of politics and ethical dillemmas, which I really enjoy. Elend improves a lot as a character in here, and although the romance is still weird, it's an understandable kind of weird. Like, ofc these two outcasts will have an awkward relationship kind of weird.

I like the mysteries it starts to present and I really like how the plot unfolds.

I loved the ending and the reveal about Ruin changing text, and how that can make re-reads a lot more fun.

Only complaint I think I have is Zane, I think you could take him out of the book and not much would change, and you could give someone else his spike to have a taste of what's to come in HoA

The Hero of Ages was awesome.

The most fun book out of the 4. The expansion on the lore, the two subplots, the reveals, everything worked so well!

What an ending! I think it couldn't have been better.

My fav parts where Spook in Urteau and TenSoon on his land.

Although I really like the concept of ruin, I think he shouldn't have been given a voice or such a strong personality. I think he should've worked as an abstract force of nature with not much input to Vin regarding his intentions or views. It felt kind of cartoonish and edgy imo. I loved the detail of a red haired corpse falling allong Vin's, implying he used to be a person at some point in history. So humans probably already existed before Preservation wanted to create them. I'm sure this will relate to future books in the cosmere which makes me really exited to keep reading.

My other compalint is Ruin ignoring Kandras until the very end. I've done the mental gymnastics to justify it so I can kind of forget about it, but it still annoys me a little bit.

Giving scores for fun, I'd say

Elantris 8.5/10

Final Empire before finishing the trilogy 6.5/10

Final Empire after finishing the trilogy 8/10

Well of Ascension 9/10

Hero of Ages 9/10

I really want to read Hyperion now but I will continue with Warbreaker once I'm done with it and Fall of Hyperion!