I wanted to give it a three and a half actually. I love the setting, the plot, and the mysteries, but I really really hated Elend Venture. I loved Kelsier and the crew, so that kept me going for the first book (more than going, really. I sincerely loved the first.)

The second was a lot more painful to go through. There was a lot of doubt in the characters about whether they should trust each other. It wasn't as fun because there was no Kelsier, and breeze and ham weren't developed upon. Elend and Vin went through, I would say, major character development. Yet I still didn't like Elend, in fact I could say i liked him even less. The plot lagged some as well.

In the third, there were too many things going on. It felt almost chaotic. As Laura Blotter stated in her review, the characters lost many of the qualities that made me love them. When Vin loses her ability to fight, I totally put the book down for several months. The resolution of the character problem felt too rushed in the way Sazed recovered his faith, Breeze and Spook came out of their depression. The way Vin overcame the ruin was rather epic, but the epicness doesn't even out with the flaws enough for me to give a five.

Don't get me wrong. I really did love the books. The first is the absolute best for me though. It balanced out the many parts that made me pissed/frustrated. Despite those bad parts, the originality of the setting and elements were so epic, it made me give a rather high score (although i probably wouldn't reread it for another several years).