The Way of Kings

I am a little speechless about how much I loved this book, which makes writing a review consisting of intelligible words a little hard, but I will make an attempt.Things I Knew About This Book Before Reading It: that it was a highly recommended fantasy series that was still in progress (but with an author that is good at keeping to a schedule), and that the only nitpick-y negative said-recommendations mentioned was that the prose isn't great. That's all I knew. I didn't read a summary, or even a single sentence description, I just knew I wanted to try out fantasy for the first time since I was in High School, and this was what I landed on.Things I Discovered After Like Three or Four Chapters: I really love the prose, so that negative was non-existent for me pretty much immediately. I clicked with it so quickly, and I honestly said “Ah, this is so well written!” out loud quite a few times throughout the book. But here is the meat and potatoes to my voracious enjoyment of this book: the characters. The characters! I am definitely a character-focused person, so if I connect with the characters I could easily read a thousand pages of them just sitting around a fire talking to each other, and these characters are so real, sympathetic (in the “I care for them so much” kind of definition), and delightfully intriguing. I literally love everyone. Shallan was definitely an early favorite, and I look forward to diving deeper into her character in the future, but the stars in my eyes by the end of this book were definitely for Kaladin and Dalinar. Their character arcs were so strong, I absolutely loved reading the intricacies of their experiences and feelings, and I think (with no knowledge of their journeys in future books) they are the best Good Guy characters I've ever read. They are both just so excellent, and I don't think I've ever been so excited to read about two characters meeting for the first time. The Fantasy Stuff: You know, the magic, and the maps, and the new words, and the history lessons. I ate it UP. There were dreams-that-weren't-dreams, and intense time-travel visions, and potentially-friendly invisible hooded figures, and powers, and storms, and lots and lots of gems. And honestly I could have read way more of Shallan just sitting in the library reading history books, so that I could also read them. Mainly, I am a total sucker for people unearthing some deep ancient power within themselves while having creepy but intensely profound imaginings, so this was all right up my alley. The Plot: This book is definitely more character focused, partially as at the beginning a lot of the characters barely know more about what is happening than the readers do, so there isn't some change in setting, or dramatic event, happening every other chapter. Personally I loved the pacing of that, because I was so into the characters that even little hurdles and triumphs in their stories felt impactful – and by the time huge blows or major victories were occurring, I was so into it that I was pacing around my living room in my anxiety and excitement while holding up this 1000 page hardcover book. And the closing chapters really blew my mind with connecting a bunch of little details I had been ruminating on throughout the entire book, and supplying me with the best kind of reveals: somehow it never occurred to me that this was the answer even though everything make SO MUCH SENSE now. So in conclusion: I literally made myself read a book I didn't like in the middle of reading this book, for the express purpose of slowing me down because I just didn't want this book to end. And even though I finished it, thankfully it kind of won't end because I am picking up [b:Words of Radiance 17332218 Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2) Brandon Sanderson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1507307927l/17332218.SY75.jpg 16482835] from the library tomorrow. I am also already excited for the day that I've made my way through the available books in the series and I can come back and re-read this book to (I'm sure) appreciate it in a totally different way. Onward!