A review by bratatouille
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

2.75

I have bested the beast. I kept being told to read this and Sanderson is a huge name in fiction rn so I decided to give it a go. As someone who doesn’t adore high fantasy or political intrigue, maybe I shouldn’t have read a book called The Way of Kings! There is such an interesting magic system in this world. You know what they don’t really discuss? Hey! It’s that magic system! I was only truly interested in one of the several storylines being followed. That storyline stops being mentioned in chapter 8 and doesn’t pick back up until 21 chapters later. It is a testament to Sanderson’s writing that I made it through this thousand page military slog. This is not to denounce the history and growth that characters go through, but I can only read about new ways to pick up a bridge so many times. I felt that the stakes in the story were set too high too quickly and maintained impeccably, so it was nearly impossible to raise them. Unfortunately, that meant that it felt like there was little to no climax at the end as well as no real room for falling action. The only true spike I can think of happened at around the 60% mark. I found the world building to be interesting, if not stupidly convenient at times (such as when the girl who wants to steal something important reveals that every woman has a secret pouch that nobody would every think of looking in because it would be the equivalent of stripping that lady naked.) Also, I fully understand that this is a long-winded book series. Even still, I think that each book of a series should have some sort of cathartic end for the involved characters and plots. This stops literature from feeling like those marvel movies where you need to watch everything before and after it to understand what’s going on. If I’m left with a wanting sense of catharsis I will probably read the other ones! This book sort of half-asses that, which is more I can say for others, but not enough to soothe me. If this is up your alley? Go for it. Take the several grains of salt that note this book wasn’t written for me. All I can say about it? I did in fact read the whole thing.

TLDR: hey I don’t think I like military and political intrigue books what happened to the cool possibly sapphic magician lady from the beginning show me more of her