Thoughts on Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson
I’ll just say this:
5/5
10/10
A MASTERPIECE.
I see why this book is one of the highest rated books on Goodreads.
Now onto the actual review. No spoilers!
After the amazing experience I had with the previous book, The Way of Kings (TWOK) I was extremely excited to get to this book.
Like how the previous book focused mainly on Kaladin, this book focused a lot on Shallan.
Characters:
If you did go through TWOK review, you’ll know that I didn’t particularly find Shallan that compelling. So when I found out this book was mainly about her, and given Brandon’s expertise when writing characters, I expected to like her- but.. I DIDN’T EXPECT TO FREAKING LIKE HER SO MUCH.
I love her progression throughout this book. I teared up at her backstory too.
OH MY LORD.
People might be put off by her humor, but that’s exactly the kind of humor that I have, so I absolutely laughed out loud with it. You go girl!
I’m honestly so happy with her arc this book. That alone brought it up a couple of notches.
What about the other characters?
My one gripe with this book would be with Kaladin. I felt that for a lot of the book he was faced with the same dilemma and didn’t his arc didn’t progress anywhere, but by the end of it, I think that’s what was necessary. Going through the not so interesting parts really gave meaning to a small part in the end.
Not saying that Kaladin didn’t have any “Oh Shit” moments this book.
Coming to that, the “Oh Shit” moments in the book were quite a few. There were many instances when I just wanted to scream out loud because of what I was reading on those pages.
So good. So many emotions.
Back to the characters. What about my main man Dalinar?
I was sad to see him take the backseat this book. There weren’t a lot of pages with him in it, but the ones where he was given plenty, I absolutely screamt.
As you can see, I love Dalinar.
The next book is about him, and you bet I’m going to love it.
There were other characters in this book that I have begun to fall for too. But that, I leave it up to you to read and find out :3
Plot:
Like I mentioned before, the number of Oh Shit moments were a lot, but did they progress the plot in any way? Yes. Yes they did. There were more than a couple of instances where something unexpected took place that I did not see coming at all!
Also, I felt like the pacing for the book was really good. The interludes this time around didn’t feel.. boring? That was one major gripe I had with the interludes in TWOK. Some of the interludes actually progressed the story, so please don’t skip it!
Suffice to say, I loved this book.
One of the easiest 10/10 I’ll ever give.
Relevant link to my book review of The Way of Kings: The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. | by Sidharth Sundaram | Medium
