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octavia_cade 's review for:
The Way of Kings
by Brandon Sanderson
I've been dithering between giving this 2 or 3 stars, and I've plumped - with some regret - for 2. Look, parts of this were excellent. I really enjoyed Kaladin and the bridge crew (although his Tragic Backstory left me cold) and I appreciated that Sanderson has done something interesting with gender and actually given more thought of what to do with women than vacantly assign them to the repression-through-realism box. I was interested in Shallan and Jasnah's storyline, and briefly considered getting the next book in the series from the library to see what happened to them.
But ultimately - and the reason for the 2 star rating - for me, the moments of enjoyment aren't worth the investment of the reading. This is just SO DAMN LONG. 1000+ pages of often mind-numbingly repetitive storyline (I can't help but refer to Dalinar as Dullinar, because worthy as he was how many times do we have to sit through his constant angsting and boring visions oh my God, I was kind of rooting for Sadeas at the end there). I just cannot help but think that this book would have been an excellent series of novellas - one each focusing on Kaladin, Shallan, and Dullinar, who might have approached interest with a more limited word count.
Honestly, part of this is that epic fantasy is a tough sell for me. I have no patience with 50 page prologues (it nearly got chucked at that point, until Sanderson started an actual story for me to follow) and I find endless battle scenes tedious beyond belief. (This book is stuffed with endless battle scenes.) If these things are your bag then you'll probably enjoy this book and more power to you. In the end, however, despite the genuinely likeable parts of it, and despite that fact that some sections of it are extremely well-written, the 2 star rating came down to 2 things.
1) Near the end, each time I turned a page I would say, with increasing levels of irritation, "How much fucking longer?!"
2) When I asked myself if I wanted to get the next volume out of the library, my automatic answer was "Oh fuck no". Sorry Shallan, sorry Jasnah. I liked you and your jam and sorcery adventures but you're surrounded by a lot of fat and it needs cutting for me to want to eat here again.
But ultimately - and the reason for the 2 star rating - for me, the moments of enjoyment aren't worth the investment of the reading. This is just SO DAMN LONG. 1000+ pages of often mind-numbingly repetitive storyline (I can't help but refer to Dalinar as Dullinar, because worthy as he was how many times do we have to sit through his constant angsting and boring visions oh my God, I was kind of rooting for Sadeas at the end there). I just cannot help but think that this book would have been an excellent series of novellas - one each focusing on Kaladin, Shallan, and Dullinar, who might have approached interest with a more limited word count.
Honestly, part of this is that epic fantasy is a tough sell for me. I have no patience with 50 page prologues (it nearly got chucked at that point, until Sanderson started an actual story for me to follow) and I find endless battle scenes tedious beyond belief. (This book is stuffed with endless battle scenes.) If these things are your bag then you'll probably enjoy this book and more power to you. In the end, however, despite the genuinely likeable parts of it, and despite that fact that some sections of it are extremely well-written, the 2 star rating came down to 2 things.
1) Near the end, each time I turned a page I would say, with increasing levels of irritation, "How much fucking longer?!"
2) When I asked myself if I wanted to get the next volume out of the library, my automatic answer was "Oh fuck no". Sorry Shallan, sorry Jasnah. I liked you and your jam and sorcery adventures but you're surrounded by a lot of fat and it needs cutting for me to want to eat here again.