Graphic Novel Review – White Sands Vol 3 by Brandon Sanderson, Rik Hoskin, Fritz Casas (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy/Graphic Novel
Length: 160 pages
Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: October 1, 2019
ISBN-13: 978-1524110062
Stand Alone or Series: 3rd book in the White Sands trilogy
Source: Borrowed from Library
Rating: 3/5 stars
“Underpowered and overwhelmed, Kenton tries to hold the Sand Masters together as forces political and personal conspire against them. Now, in one final push, Kenton must tap the most dangerous depths of his own abilities to combat the enemies within his own guild, and discover the truth behind the ambush that killed his father and almost destroyed the Sand Masters for good.”
Series Info/Source: This is the 3rd, and final, book in the White Sands graphic novel series. I borrowed this book from the library.
Story (3/5): This pretty much just plays out the storyline started in the first two books. The whole thing was pretty predictable, but decent. There is, again, a lot of focus on politics as Kenton struggles to keep the Sand Masters from being disbanded. There are a couple neat battle scenes, but mostly there was a ton of dialogue as Kenton struggles through the politics.
Characters (3/5): The characters in here are so-so. There are quite a few of them and I never really engaging with them all that well. I didn’t really ever like Kenton as a character. I think my favorite character was probably The Duchess, since she was pretty humorous and was trying to make some positive changes for her country.
Setting (4/5): I did enjoy the world created here. The dark and light sides to the world are intriguing and I loved the Sand Mastery magic. You can tell a lot of time and thought went into building this world, which is something that is pretty typical for Sanderson.
Writing Style/Illustration (3/5): Although there is a complex story here I felt like at points there was just too much dialogue. The dialogue sounds kind of awkward and stilted. I do like that there are headings that let you know when you change setting and I liked the summary of the “story so far” at the beginning of the book. While the illustration is well done, I didn’t particularly enjoy the style of the art. However, I never had any issue with following the story and the illustrations are very detailed…it just wasn’t a style I really liked.
Summary (3/5): Overall I am happy that I wrapped up this series. It wasn’t my favorite graphic novel series but I did really enjoy the world and the idea behind Sand Mastery. The last two books of the series have been a bit too politics heavy for me and I missed having more of the action that was in the first book.
