The Bands of Mourning

****

4 Stars/5

Thanks to Netgalley and Orion Publishing Group for giving me this book to review.

When a mishap occurs on Wax and Steris’s wedding day, it prevents the ceremony from taking place.  Not long after this, Wax and his friends head out of Elendel to New Seran in search of the Bands of Mourning, the mythical metalminds allegedly owned by the Lord Ruler and said to grant his powers to anyone who wears them.  They need to find them before Wax’s Uncle, Edwarn gets to them to use them for nefarious purposes.

I had very high hopes of The Bands of Mourning but I actually felt a little bit let down by it.  It seemed to slightly lose the plot and introduce some weird and wonderful twists (but not in a good way).  At the same time, the main characters sat down, thought what they really wanted out of life, and chose to settle rather than push the boundaries, which seemed quite out of character for them.  However, saying that, I still enjoyed the book very much.

Again, I had a great deal of liking and respect for Steris, who is socially awkward and a little bit OCD, but who tries to overcome this and improve herself.  She is a good person when all is said and done.  Wax and Wayne seemed to have lost a little bit of the spark in their bromance and there was much less banter between the two of them.

While I still enjoyed The Bands of Mourning very much, I did feel that it wasn’t quite as good as the other books in the Mistborn and Allow of Law series.  I would still, however, recommend The Bands of Mourning to people who enjoyed the Mistborn series, especially books 4 and 5.