Handbuch für den genügsamen Zauberer

Maybe a weird place to start reading Sanderson's work, but the title instantly enticed me. And yeah, TFWIHFSME (what a way to shorten that) is a pretty sweet read.
It's not anything incredible or life-changing, but the concept is well thought-out. There's a futuristic and historical aspect to this, which are blended together very neatly. Sprinkle in a bit of fantasy, and yeah, medieval England with guns seems about right.

Pacing-wise it's a bit off in the first half, outside of the main character most people get pretty surface-level characterizations but there's enough witty writing and humour here to keep the book an entertaining read.

"The more I've studied history, the more I've maintained that great achievements aren't so much about aptitude as about timing."

This one never really came together for me. I had similar concerns going into Tress of the Emerald Sea, but I ended up finding it pretty charming in the end after I'd spent some time with it. This one lacked that charming part, and just felt a bit of a chore to get through. It just wasn't what I expect out of Sanderson, and even beyond that, it was just....fine. Even reading it blind without knowing who the author was, I probably wouldn't rate it much higher.

I'll keep this brief and un-spoilery. A man wakes up in a field, surrounded by burned grass, doesn't remember how he got there or what he was doing or even who he was. Around him in the burned grass are charred pages of some book; reading these he starts piecing small things together. Turns out he's bought a pocket dimension in medieval England, but now he's stranded and has to figure out what to do, how to get home, and how to help the local people that rescued him.

Right off the bat I'll say Johnny's tendency to mentally rate experiences (like a Yelp reviewer or something) really grated on my nerves. It always felt forced and shoehorned in, and even after it's directly addressed near the end it didn't help. The humor in this one, too, felt repetitive, with a lot of the same joke beats being hit each time. Lots of eyeroll jokes. I also wasn't really invested in Johnny as the main character, as he felt really bland and boring. He does get quite a bit of character development near the end, but it's basically dumped on you all at once and doesn't feel very authentic as a result. The side characters aren't really explored all that much either, which, I guess, is a product of the relatively short nature of the book.

I loved the artwork though! Most pages feature at least a doodle at the bottom, with several full color spreads throughout. The concept of buying your own dimension to live out your medieval fantasy in is interesting, but since this seems like a one-off novel I'm a bit disappointed it can't be explored more. The story itself is....fine. Serviceable, but not remarkable.

In summary, kind of a miss for me. An adequate book, but not really a Sanderson book.

My lowest rated Sanderson book. Didn't work for me at all. Almost gave up on finishing this, but the second half just dragged on similarly. After reading [b:Tress of the Emerald Sea|60531406|Tress of the Emerald Sea (The Cosmere)|Brandon Sanderson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1672574587l/60531406.SY75.jpg|95396305] as the first secret novel, I was quite excited about the second one. I thought all 4 were Cosmere novels, and was slightly disappointed when I had the cover spoiled for me a few days before launch.

The Year of Sanderson continues with The Frugal Wizard's Handbook but it didn't do it for me. For how short this book is (372 pages) I took quite a while to get through it.

April has been a bit more chaotic than I anticipated and if a new Sanderson book couldn't encourage me to sit and read for hours at a time then no author could.

I found the story entertaining but I wasn't fully engaged. As the backstory of the lead, John, comes to light I didn't feel compelled to keep reading and learn more. I treated this book with a casual attachment, reading here and there when I could, and the book didn't punish me for that. Thankfully this was a fairly straight forward story to read and I could take a few days off between reads without being lost when I returned.

The premise of the story is fun. The origin that this started as a "what if" story Brandon would toy with when sleeping is also appropriate; even when he's trying to fall asleep he creates a story.

It's not Sanderson's best work and that's okay. This was a change of genres and story telling for him and it's great that Sanderson felt comfortable enough to experiment and let us all follow along.