Book Review: Words of Radiance

Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This story is full of twists and turns that kept me flipping pages well after bedtime!

Kaladin starts making serious progress with his new abilities in this book, but despite having superpowers and being in a position of relative comfort, he's as broody as ever. While trying to get a grip on his powers, Kaladin is confronted with two conflicting duties, and the stress of doing "what's right" when neither option clearly is tears him up inside and puts him on the outs with Syl. It doesn't help that Amaram has come to the Shattered Plains and Kaladin is expected to smile at the man who destroyed his life.
Kaladin also faces Szeth a couple times in this book, revealing that they are both Windrunners, which forces Szeth to realize he was never actually truthless, which kind of breaks his brain. Despite all the people he's killed, I really felt sorry for Szeth and what his culture put him through.

Shallan makes her way to the Shattered Plains via a rather circuitous route, during which she gets quite good at manipulating people into doing what she wants. Her character is believable, but I had trouble connecting with her as she so often comes across as a spoiled, petulant child. She often mistakes meanness for cleverness and seems to take great joy in making other people feel stupid. At least she has plenty of room to grow.
We get flashbacks of Shallan's life in this book, in the same way we got Kaladin's backstory in book 1. Mostly her whole family seems to suffer from serious mental illnesses and Shallan does what she can to keep everyone as happy as possible... which isn't very.

Dalinar remains the rigid psudo-leader, quietly taking control while pretending the king is still in charge. His son Adolin is given leave to resume dueling in order to claim the shards of highlords who oppose Dalinar, but Adolin's temper and lack of foresight gets him into more trouble than he can handle on his own. Kaladin steps in to help, and the two, who up till now have disliked each other, finally bond.

This book gives us our first Parshendi POV. We learn more about why they fight and how their job/form-changing society is structured. There were some contradictions and loose ends in the Parshendi narratives that I'm curious to see if/how they get resolved moving forward, but overall it was nice to see the war from a different perspective, and I like the character of Eshonai.

Dalinar, convinced of his righteous path, leads those who will follow on a full assault on the Parshendi, which results in a climactic battle. Both Shallan and Kaladin reveal themselves to be surgebinders by the end of the book, as their skills are necessary during the final conflict, though Shallan hides many of her skills and insists on lying about which order she belongs to so that people don't know what she's truly capable of.

The ending is bittersweet but satisfying, with plenty of promise of what's to come. I can't wait to read more.

View all my reviews