Words of Radiance Book Review
“If I protect… only the people I like, it means that I don’t care about doing what is right.”
After finishing The Way of Kings earlier in the month, I immediately dove headfirst into book two of Brandon Sanderson’s epic fantasy series, The Stormlight Archive. I was left with so many questions and absolutely needed to keep reading to find out more. I will do all that I can to leave this review spoiler free, but just know that when writing a review on the second book in a series, it’s much more difficult due to the complex building of the storyline. It’s challenging to tell you what this book is about and why I enjoyed it so much, without revealing too much. This review might not be as comprehensive as my review on The Way of Kings, but I will try my best.
Words of Radiance, book two in The Stormlight Archive series, continues to follow our main characters from book one. We focus on Shallan, Kaladin, and Dalinar with more appearances from Adolin and flashbacks from a different character. For me, reading a second book in a series is always interesting because growing familiar with a set of characters is like developing friendships with them. I have walked alongside them, learned about what makes them tick, what their main motivations are, what makes them laugh, what they fear, what they love. I have developed opinions about who that character is and I usually find myself wanting to know more about them. I found the same to be true in Words of Radiance. I enjoyed revisiting my friends from Roshar, and was thrilled to follow along as they experienced new challenges, faced their fears head on, and evolved due to these experiences. Now that I know these characters more, watching them interact with other characters that I’ve come to love was so enjoyable. I found Sanderson’s dialogue between characters to be laugh out loud hilarious in this book. It’s rare that a book makes me laugh out loud, but this one did. I did not think I would be giggling my way through this book, turns out, I was wrong. There were multiple interactions where I literally laughed out loud and had to share the lines with my husband because they were so witty. Sanderson does an incredible job writing dialogue full of puns and quips. This makes reading his books enjoyable on an entirely different level.
“Contradictions. Those are what made people real.
”
Sanderson includes interludes between parts in this series and I found myself enjoying the interludes more in this book than I did in The Way of Kings. They seemed to be more cohesive to the storyline, or maybe I just knew more about the world at this point to pick up on how they fit. Some of the interludes followed the same characters each time, which I enjoyed and coming to an interlude felt more like I was revisiting that particular character rather than just something I had to get through before getting back to the action. Sanderson’s choice to tell the story of one character through the interludes was an interesting addition that I enjoyed and one that kept me engaged. I found that Words of Radiance read like a beautiful mix of both a character driven and a plot driven novel. While there was more action that moved the plot forward in this book compared to the first book, it still read like a study of our main characters and I was interested to get more of the back story of one main character in particular.
“Keep cutting at those thorns, strong one, and make a path for the light.
”
Right out of the gate, Sanderson did a fantastic job with continuing to build the world that is Roshar. I really enjoyed how he spent a lot of the beginning of the book revealing truths about Spren and how they function in this universe. Spren are a vital component to the storyline, so I won’t reveal much about what we learn, but I did want to include in my review that I enjoyed exploring the connection Spren have to the universe. Spren and their involvement in these characters’ worlds are one of my favorite parts of this series so far. As I said in my review on The Way of Kings, I love how Sanderson builds a world and is so detail orientated that every single thing matters. As a reader, this makes me feel like he put so much effort into creating an experience for me to enjoy. Like he went above and beyond to give me a thought playground where I can explore the meanings behind the entirety of Roshar. I love how the environments function and work together symbiotically. I love the bizarre creatures and the inclusion of their ecosystems. I have never read anything quite like The Stormlight Archive series.
As far as the plot goes, this book does not disappoint! From the beginning I found that this book moves faster than The Way of Kings. There was one scene in the very beginning that I did not expect and from that point forward, I knew this book was going to be a wild ride. I did find that the book lagged a bit in the middle, not because it wasn’t exciting, but because I felt Sanderson leading us to something huge and I was just tired of waiting for it. I was being an impatient reader, not trusting the process. You can’t fault me for it when reading a book like this. Just like in the first book, I found that the last 30% of the book was a thrill ride that I could not put down. I spent an entire Sunday glued to my Kindle, ignoring all of my responsibilities just so I could finish the book. I literally read from the moment I woke up, to the moment I went to sleep, only breaking to use the restroom, eat, and do a quick workout. I’ve only ever done this with a handful of books: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, A Little Life, and A Dance with Dragons, just to name a few.
This book made me laugh out loud, it made me cry, it made me question how humans process emotions and my own humanity. I know 1,000 page epic fantasy books are not for everyone, like I’ve said before, I didn’t think they were for me. But man, this book was so good I want to press it into everyone’s hands. I was left at the end of this book dancing around my living room screaming, “I finished! Wowowowowow!” I don’t know how Brandon Sanderson does it, but he is an incredible storyteller and I can’t wait to delve deeper into his work.
This book was easily a five star read.
