ghost with books 👻📚 reviewed The Burning White by Brent Weeks (Lightbringer #5)
"On ending well" my ass
3 stars
Content warning Spoilers about the end
Weeks wrote an essay explaining why The Lightbringer went from three books, to four, and finally five. He titled it "On Ending Well," and I suppose he hoped that the title and the essay itself might help him to do just that—end his story well.
It did not.
The end of this book—and, thus, the series—was a colossal disappointment to me. I almost gave the book a 1- or 2-star rating just for the end, but having tried my hand at writing stories myself, I decided that would be unfair. The majority of this book is actually quite good, I thought. Excellent pacing, gut-wrenching reveals, satisfying conclusions to some important story arcs—it's all there. This could have been great, if only Weeks had been willing to let his characters die; if only Weeks hadn't employed God Himself to save our protagonists.
There was a time when I was telling all my friends about this cool fantasy series I was reading. Now I can't recommend this to anyone.
How disappointing.