"Tress of the Emerald Sea" by Brandon Sanderson

Wholesome YA Fantasy with Amazing World Building

Tress of the Emerald Sea Book Cover

I really loved this book. I'm not sure how I stumbled upon this, but I must have found a recommendation for this book somewhere when I placed it on hold at my local library and completely forgot about it. When I finally got this off hold, I completely forgot what this was about and why I wanted to read it. Surprisingly, despite my love for fantasy, this was my first experience with Brandon Sanderson and the Cosmere universe, And boy oh boy this did not disappoint.

Reading the Foreword/Acknowledgements of the book, you discover that this was originally a secret project Sanderson created for his wife. Only after her strong encouragement, did he decided to publish it. Having not read the other Cosmere books, I can't attest to the rest of the universe. But you can really tell in this book that Sanderson is truly testing the limits and just focused on creating a fun book.

Starting off with a classic protagonist stranded on a dead-end island, you might almost think it's a classic YA fantasy, but this book is quick to correct your assumptions. No, Tress does not have any aspirations of leaving her island, and no, the island is not actually surrounded by water. Instead, the seas are full of dangerous spores that, when activated with water, burst into beautiful and terrifying things. Seeing how humans are full of water, Tress has very little desire to venture out on the sea until her love gets captured by the evil sorceress and she must go rescue him!

This novel turns all the classic fantasy/YA tropes up over their heads and really has so much fun with it. The world in this stories is so intricately built, and each character is fleshed out so wonderfully. You can really tell that Sanderson has honed his craft for years. This is truly one of the best written books I've ever read.

I cannot rave about this book more. This book has for sure become one of my favorite books ever.

5 stars all around