Words of radiance Review

Paperback, 1310 Pages
Adult/ Epic Fantasy
By: Brandon Sanderson
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

“Words are where most change begins.”

The Way of Kings ★★★★ 1/2
Words of Radiance ★★★★★

Some numbers to kick off this review with: At the time I am writing this, Words of Radiance has a mind-blowing average rating of 4.75 Stars on GR with over 277K ratings and it is just a crazy rating that the more I think about it, the crazier it gets. Almost 80% of readers gave it 5 stars and less than 1% gave it less than 2 stars and if that doesn’t tell you how good it is, I don’t know what will.

I loved The Way of Kings and I gave it 4.5 stars rounded up to 5 stars because I felt that it could a bit better. Words or Radiance proved me right and was actually much better. It was my 100# book for this year and it got a perfect 5 stars from me and will probably be my favorite book of the year. This is a series that defines the genre now because it is epic fantasy and it is as epic as it can get.

While The Way of Kings start with a prologue for a prologue and then a few chapters of confusion until we are a bit more comfortable with the world. This starts much faster and much more epic than it it’s predecessor. The story is told through multiple POVs like the first book and they are mainly Kaladin, Dalinar, Shallan and Adolin and a point of view of the antagonists which was cool.

“As I fear not a child with a weapon he cannot lift, I will never fear the mind of a man who does not think.”

I don’t know how some people can criticize Sanderson prose and say he has good magic systems but mediocre prose because it was anything but in this series so far. The writing is great, realistic and it is easy to follow and I highlighted a ton of quotes that I loved. Not many authors can make the readers stick to a 1000+ pages books but Sanderson seems to do so effortlessly. I switched between my kindle copy and my paperback while reading this and according to my kindle it took almost 24 hours to finish through 8 days of reading. (My kindle battery went from 100% to almost zero while reading this)

The characters are still a big focus of the story and I don’t know if I can choose a favorite yet. I love a certain character but she was absent for the majority of this book so I can’t decide yet. But all of the characters get so much development and we get to understand them more and to know their backstories and the threads get closer together. The companions of the main characters are also something I did not expect but ended up really loving. Kaladin is a character to die for and I finally stumbled upon the scene with his legendary quote:

“Honor is dead. But I’ll see what I can do.”

Up to the ending of The Way of Kings, I still preferred the magic system in Mistborn but with the conclusion of this book, I think I am leaning towards the magic system in this series. I don’t know how many times I can say the word epic without sounding too redundant but it is the best description because the magic was also epic. I loved that we got to understand it more and that it still has much potential for the future books.

The plot in this one was better than the first book and it was just interesting from start to finish. All of the book is great but the last 200 pages are on a whole different level. The small writer in me is left in awe of how everything comes together nicely at the end in the best way possible. It made me want to pick book three immediately but I am working through the series slowly so that I don’t have to re-read it when book 5 comes out. At least I got the novella which I can read soon.

“Expectation wasn’t just about what people expected of you. It was about what you expected of yourself.”

Summary: This was an improvement on The Way of Kings from all aspects. Better writing and character, solid story line and plot twists and pacing. This is a masterpiece that is perfect and deserves a full 5 stars from me!!

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