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Sep 23, 2013

My Thoughts: Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

5 oatmeal butterscotch cookies.

Cover Love:
Totally!  It is ominous and heroic at the same time.

Why I Wanted to Read This:
I do love superhero type stories and the synopsis of this one had me hooked right away.  In fact, it went up to the top of my "to read" pile as soon as I got it!  Here's the synopsis on GoodReads:
Ten years ago, Calamity came. It was a burst in the sky that gave ordinary men and women extraordinary powers. The awed public started calling them Epics.

But Epics are no friend of man. With incredible gifts came the desire to rule. And to rule man you must crush his wills.

Nobody fights the Epics... nobody but the Reckoners. A shadowy group of ordinary humans, they spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and then assassinating them.

And David wants in. He wants Steelheart—the Epic who is said to be invincible. The Epic who killed David's father. For years, like the Reckoners, David's been studying, and planning—and he has something they need. Not an object, but an experience.

He's seen Steelheart bleed. And he wants revenge.
Romance?: 
No, but maybe something in the future. Which brings up a question, can Epics reproduce? If they do, will the baby have superpowers? Hopefully that will be addressed in a future book.

My Thoughts:
This book had me from the first few pages.   The opening scene in the bank is amazing and disturbing and sets up the tone of the book extremely well.  The author lets us know very clearly that Epics ARE NOT GOOD.  But it made me wonder, did Calamity only give powers to evil people to begin with or did the powers turn people evil  (This actually gets mostly answered later in the book).

The whole issue of what Calamity is never does get answered which makes me very hopeful for a second book.  As harsh as this new reality is, the author does such a good job of putting us there that I look forward to revisiting this world.

I really, really hope that David would've had latent Epic powers, that maybe weren't going to kick in until he hit 18 or so.  It also made me wonder, did any children get powers?  Were people still getting powers from Calamity?  Every now and again they would talk about a "new" Epic so that leads me to believe that people were still getting powers.  So could anyone end up an Epic at any time?

The great thing is that even though I had a lot of questions the main story of this book did end, so if there never was a second book I would be satisfied with this one.

I just love superhero stories that are based in our reality.  But the interesting aspect of this one, for me, was that it is our world, one event changed everything.  There was a lot to think about.  And when they talk about the Epics fighting for control of certain sections of the country it was scary to think about.  Why would they fight so much and basically turn an area they wanted to control into a wasteland?  What was even left there to control?

To Sum Up:
Highly enjoyable.  This will be a fun book to booktalk and get into readers hands.  I think they will be clamoring for more!

eGalley requested and received from Random House via NetGalley.


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