Reviews with content warning for Child death - The Way of Kings

I fucking did it. Finally.
I wish this book hadn’t ended well because then I could leave well enough alone and move on. But it did end well. The most boring character of the whole thing, Dalinar, who I had to force myself to read the chapters of, became the character that made me cry. That I am rooting for. Shallan and Jasnah Kholin are great characters, and they were consistently the most interesting throughout. Why Sanderson spent so much time on his boring characters and so little time on the most interesting people he created is beyond me.

Then there’s Kalidan who is an annoying little shit and I don’t like him as a hero. He’s mopey and moody and so full of testosterone it makes my head hurt. He is Fitz without the charm. And he also does something that is completely and totally irredeemable for me.

How am I supposed to root for someone who uses a *person’s* skin as armor? After knowing the emotional torment it causes one of his supposed men who he is supposed to care about and protect? Like what the fuck.

I also don’t understand why this book is written so poorly - the pacing is horrible, most of the dialogue is clunky and awkward, and there are hundreds of useless pages. If this book was 600 pages, it would be fantastic. But it’s more than double that and it feels like it. This was not fun to read. I can’t in good conscience recommend this book to anyone, even though I think I’ll likely read the next one.

Beyond that, I have a serious issue with the presentation of the parshmen. It’s borderline pretty racist, and with the reveal at the end of the book, it implies something pretty gross that made me feel actually nauseous. At it’s worst, the position is appalling. At its best, it is not even the bar. At its best it is a white man discussing slavery and colonialism with a comfortability that is absolutely not deserved.

I imagine this series will fall into my category with Outlander. In that series, I disagree with a lot of the representations of relationships and consent, but I care enough about the story to keep reading. I feel similarly here, but I doubt I will talk about it often or recommend it. It reads like 80s fantasy, and that’s not a compliment. It actually reminds me heavily of how I felt reading Dune (except Dune is paced gorgeously, with politicking that actually feels well thought out) in its presentation of women and minority groups, even though I enjoyed the story.

This book is bad. I doubt anyone could get away with something this shoddily put together if they weren’t Brando Sando. Yeah it all came together, but I hated reading close to 900 pages of this book. Two thirds of this book were a terrible chore. The ending does not make it ok and the supposed endless pages of world-building did not fucking exist. It wasn’t world descriptions or understanding of anything that padded those hundreds upon hundreds of pages. It wasn’t even really exposition. It was mostly useless, long-winded explanations of events, boring (and pretty lame) politicking, and incredibly basic fight sequences. After the gorgeous fight choreo in Mistborn, this whole thing was a huge disappointment.

But will I continue the story? Yeah probably. But only if the next book is written with actual events in mind.

Content Warnings

oldladysadie's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful inspiring mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

I saw someone on Reddit describe this book as a 1,000-page prologue, and it seems a fair assessment to me. It was an increeedibly long read, and at times I really wished the book could have been paired down to only the primary characters in the Shattered Plains. But having finished it, seen that amazing ending and now having the full groundwork laid out for what we’re actually doing in this series, I can see how every perspective and description was necessary, and I do love all of the characters at play. I am very excited to read the rest of the series (after a break, lol).

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bsteve24's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No

5.0

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kashby's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional inspiring tense

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

i cried

Content Warnings

sparklingginger's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Content Warnings

gilchrist's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Content Warnings

leona's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Here I am, reviewing The Way of Kings.
There you are, reading this review. Now, I urge you to read The Way of Kings, or re-read it if you haven't already.

This is the longest book I have ever read, but I'm not the type to get easily intimidated by a book's size so I saw this as a bit of a challenge. It's also my 7th Sanderson book. I loved this book.

I think the strongest aspect of this 1100 page behemoth is the character work. This book mainly looks at Kaladin, a young man turned slave, turned bridgeman. It sounds kind of boring or stupid at first but Kaladin's job (minor spoiler) is basically to carry a huge bridge, with the rest of his bridge crew, and haul it over plateaus / chasms in a landscape known as the shattered plains. These bridges allow the armies and cavalry to travel between plains. Not only this, the bridgemen are expected to run headlong at severe arrow-fire, unshielded and unprotected - it's a bloodbath, but the men are treated as disposable.

Through Kaladin's job, he experiences some sever trauma and suffers with depression and suicidal thoughts. His character was so compelling and the struggle of the bridgemen to just stay alive when everyone wants them dead is so heartbreaking. I found myself shedding a tear at one point in Kaladin's backstory

when he volunteers to join the army with his brother Tien.

Syl is also incredibly fascinating and I love her relationship with Kaladin, almost like his mini therapist. Bridge Four is amazing. (Honestly I need to come up with some more adjectives and ways to describe books.)

The magic system is expansive and epic (although a bit confusing - I think so far I still prefer allomancy) and some of the concepts are so strange and original. For example, grass and plants in Roshar kind of shrink into the ground when they are stepped on - it's very weird. It's also weird that class is basically defined by the colour of your eyes, it's quite a prevalent theme in the book is that people will discriminate people for all sorts of stupid reasons if possible.

I enjoyed Shallan's chapters, although I wasn't a huge fan of her at first.

I didn't really like Dalinar though. I find him so boring for most of the book until the Sanderlanche of the last 10% of the book. His chapters are just dull and tedious, and it took me ages to get through Part 2, whereas the Parts with just Kaladin and Shallan didn't take me long at all. I think I disliked Dalinar potentially because of how we see Kaladin struggling and Dalinar's high society is basically the cause of Kaladin's suffering. I also feel like the battle scenes with the Parshendi in Dalinar's perspective are just boring because with Shardplate Dalinar can basically just mow them down with a single sweep, they don't really provide much of a threat

until the end obviously

yet we see Kaladin's men constantly shot down by Parshendi. I feel like a lot of time is spent showing us how wonderful Shardplate / blades are and I cared more about

Kaladin's stormlight magic.

I hated Elhokar so much as well, he is so stupid and annoying, honestly I'm hoping someone assassinates this dude. Not a huge fan of Adolin either.

Some of the plot twists were a bit obvious

like the realisation that Kaladin is unintentionally using stormlight

but I kind of feel like this was a bit intentional. Some of the twists

like Amaram having betrayed and stolen Kaladin's Shardblade, Dalinar buying the bridgemen by giving Oathbringer to Sadeas, Sadeas betraying Dalinar (I loudly said, 'You dick Sadeas' but also I feel like this wasn't that surprising because I don't think you really trust Sadeas right from the start) and Tien being conscripted into the war by Roshone and Kaladin following.

I enjoyed the Interludes quite a lot, as well as the humour from Wit. I enjoyed the pervasive theme of wit, and what makes someone witty or intelligent. Also Hoid is just so confusing like who's side is he on? Is he even on a side?

I kind of feel like not much actually happened for a book that is so long in some ways, but I still really enjoyed it. Maybe I didn't feel as surprised by things because of all the damn spoilers I'm always seeing in like memes and shit. Anyways, 4 stars because I can't get over how bored I was with some of Dalinar's chapters.

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