Well of Ascension felt very middle of the road for me. Was it better than the first? I'm not very sure.

In this book, we obviously have to deal with the repercussions of the events of The Final Empire. There's kind of a "What now?" premise to the story. We see more layers to our characters which made them more endearing. We are introduced to new, amazing, and complex characters. We see more of the details and layers of this world, the different races, the history, and the magic system, which sounds like a lot, but the pacing of this story was so near-perfect in my opinion that everything was laid out in a very calculated manner. Where I felt the first book was slow and then everything started happening, this one had a sequence of events that consistently kept me interested without feeling the need to slow down or speed up.

Not to give anything away but where the first book involved a lot of planning, this did as well but with the addition of an ongoing mystery that was nerve-wracking to say the least. No one can be trusted. I liked this aspect of the story. The one I wasn't too much of a fan of was our main character Vin. I found her internal struggles and hasty decisions eyeroll-worthy and annoying at times.

Speaking of characters, halfway through the book I found myself crying not because of anything big that happened in the story but because I cared so much about the main cast. Their different arcs were so wonderful to follow and I would do anything for any of them.

There are a few people who fault Brandon Sanderson for pushing his religion through his works and while I've only seen the opposite in my previous reads of his works, this one definitely has a part that might be a turn off for those who aren't the biggest fans of religion or at least the perception of it as a positive thing.

My main hiccup (not really a complaint or anything) with this book is how much it's so-called Sanderlanche lacked the punch that my previous Cosmere reads had. Sure, there were some scenes that really played with my emotions and the ending had me screaming (internally of course), but I was never blown away. Some parts of it, like the first book, were honestly quite tropey and predictable, but that's not to say I didn't like it. I just felt that I needed a little more.

Overall, no strong feelings of like or dislike or disappointment. Solid 4 stars because I did enjoy it.

Good follow up to The Final Empire, although I feel like this book is leading the story down a path similar to his Reckoners series, where the main villain is defeated in the first book and the next two books set up a much bigger adversary. 

While I do agree that the book can get tedious in the first part, especially with the politics, I did enjoy the story. The italicized bits above each chapter really help to keep my interest; primarily because I really want to know who is speaking in those sections.