Reviews with content warning for Violence - The Way of Kings

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

139 reviews

bohboh's review

adventurous 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? It's complicated

5.0

Where to start? Incredible worldbuilding, intriguing characters, beautifully written action sequences, and a good medium-pacing but fast when it needs to be. There some of every fantasy book subgenre crammed in here, I think, and every bit of it works together to make a symphony.

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lvl52_grant's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense 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? Yes

5.0

I can't believe I took this long to read this book. It was my first Sanderson, and I'm absolutely hooked. I loved every POV character, and, obviously, Sanderson's worldbuilding is beyond compare. Little hints are sprinkled throughout the book, and they all come to a head in the last 100 pages, hitting with the weight of freight trucks.
I apologize for making this my entire personality now.

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mnstarr's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.75

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travisdabis's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging tense

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

5.0

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hannah_s13's review against another edition

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adventurous inspiring medium-paced

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

3.75

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jillustrations's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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wardenred's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark slow-paced

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

3.75

And so, does the destination matter? Or is it the path we take?

I... kind of feel like I've read a lightly novellized non-fiction book on natural history, except it's the natural history of a made-up world. The worldbuilding here is amazing, that's for sure. Everything is so original and vivid and beautifully detailed. The magic, the way the world works, the politics and societal structure, there's so much, and it fits together beautifully. Unfortunately, the story itself never made me have any particularly strong feelings. I would have preferred to hang out in this awesome world by myself, whether via a videogame or a TTRPG medium, instead of getting to know it via this book.

Up until the very last part, everything is just so slow-paced. It took me about 100 pages to get invested enough into at least a couple of characters (Kaladin and then Shallan) that I decided I wasn't going to DNF, after all. On one hand, it's basically the 10% mark, which is a reasonable place to go from undecided to hooked. On the other hand, um, 100 pages. :D

And those two characters for the most part remained the only ones I truly cared for throughout the whole book. A number of others were intriguing, but I never quite clicked with them. I'm still trying to figure out what made me so hard to be invested in most of the cast, since plenty of characters had the type of personalities and conflicts that I usually enjoy reading about. I think it has something to do with the style of writing. Most of the character arcs were on the flat side, with the characters stuck in the same personal crises for pages and pages on end. And the characters and their problems were so obviously used as lenses for studying the world. And then there was the slow pacing and the fact that nothing really happened for over 2/3 of the huge book. All of that created the impression like I was reading the backstories, not witnessing the real action.

Actually, once I look back at the experience, I think this is exactly how I perceive it: there were 700-750 pages of backstory, and then 250-300 pages of gradually increasing stakes, tension, and action. And yeah, I guess plenty of details I learned while getting immersed in that backstory helped make the actual plot hit harder, once the story got that far. But was there truly no other way to tell this story?

(The question is rhetorical; I'm pretty sure there was, but all those alternate ways would have involved less focus on worldbuilding, and I could feel in every word how much the author loves the world he created and wants others to be fascinated with it, too. And, hey, it worked! I was pretty fascinated! And now I kind of want to witness more involved and dynamic plots set against the same backdrop...)

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