A review by rg9400
Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson

adventurous dark reflective 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

4.0

I don't even know how to begin reviewing a behemoth of a book like this. I'll start with something I was fairly clear on. I have always heard criticism of Brandon Sanderson's prose, and I never really took much stock in it. Maybe because I was listening to it through audiobook or because I read many of his books just when I was starting to get back into reading, but it always felt fine to me. I am not sure if it is because I have read a lot more since I last read him or if this book just struggles more, but I did notice issues with the prose this time, namely within dialogue and often associated with moments of humor and romance. There is a level of cheesiness that is hard to ignore at times. To be clear, Sanderson can still write a very effective action sequence, and there are still quotes that feel impactful and profound. The issue I noticed seems to lie more in the connective mundane sequences that make up the journey. And this book is a lot of journey. As the longest book in the series, Wind and Truth really does feel like a marathon. It's split up across 10 days leading up to a big event, and the pacing starts to meander a bit after the halfway mark. I was feeling pretty immersed and able to easily listen through the first half, but as the book progresses into a lot more skirmishes and battle sequences that seem to be drawn out, I started to find it a bit harder to continue. The day structure is also a bit strange because it messes with the timescale a lot and often never really feels exactly relevant to the story by adding urgency. I never actually felt like just a day had progressed in most of the arcs, and each location seemed to be operating at a completely different scale in terms of time progression. However, as the book entered Day 9 and 10, it sped up considerably as it started to line up all the pieces for the conclusion. And the conclusion is phenomenal, ending up feeling both unexpected but also entirely true to most of the character journeys. Some of those moments at the end hit very hard, and I think Sanderson still remains completely capable of landing a haymaker of a chapter and endpoint to a character arc. Not every character arc through these first 5 books feels as well-defined, and I did find a few that felt repetitive and a few that felt insignificant. Thankfully, this book does allocate pagecount accordingly, so the stronger characters do get the meat of the focus. Similarly, I thought where the plot and story ended up was good as well, acting as a good midpoint to the story within Stormlight Archive as well as having real ramifications for Sanderson's shared universe of the Cosmere. Throughout this series, the refrain has been "Journey Before Destination", but unfortunately, I did find the destination was much stronger than the journey for this book. I am still glad I read it, but I do hope that Sanderson is sharper with his editing in the future and legitimately aims for conciseness instead of self-indulgence since it will make the stories tighter and let him hone his prose more. Regardless, I do think the destination was worth the journey.