Genre: adult epic fantasy

I came into The Way of Kings with some hesitancy, because I didn’t care for Mistborn when I read it several years ago, and everyone says that’s Sanderson’s best book . . . so I expected everything to be downhill from there. But apparently I have weird tastes in books? Because I absolutely LOVED The Way of Kings.

(And because I want to describe all the things I loved at great length, I’m going to get the content warning out of the way: This is not a children’s book. This is written for adults, and it therefore has much more violence than most books I recommend, along with some brief mild language. There’s also some questionable theology—Sanderson is Mormon, but it’s unclear whether God exists within his fantasy world or not. But there’s no sexual content, and no gratuitous or overly gory violence, and the language isn’t anything too bad, so most teens could probably handle it. But everyone has different thresholds of what they can tolerate—so consider yourself duly informed.)

First off, the worldbuilding was amazing. I read a lot of fantasy (I read 20+ books a month, and about half of those are fantasy, which makes over 100 fantasy books a year. . .), and Sanderson is absolutely top-notch. I almost think he’s better than Tolkien . . . but saying that is kind of the literary equivalent of heresy, so pretend I didn’t. 🙂

But the entire world—and all the cultures—is absolutely fascinating to me. I loved the way he played with language—each language and culture has its own “feel,” even though we don’t get translations. While reading, I had the sense that I was just barely scratching the surface of a much larger and more complex world, and I absolutely love the feeling of weight that gives the story.

By far my favorite part of his world, though, were the spren—small creatures all throughout the world who are explained later in the series as being human thought incarnate. (So for example, there’s one kind of spren associated with wind, another with fear, another with pain, and so forth.)

While reading about spren on Sanderson’s website, I was intrigued by the fact that many readers seemed confused by spren—or at least had trouble suspending their disbelief. But after a little thought, that made sense. Most modern readers, after all, have been heavily influenced by a materialistic world that doesn’t believe in anything beyond our senses. And so a fantasy world where thought itself is incarnate as these tiny, sometimes insect-like, sometimes fairy-like creatures, is deeply disorienting.

I, on the other hand, found it absolutely delightful. One of the things that draws me again and again to fantasy is the reminder that there is a world beyond our senses—that there are spiritual realities which we are unable to see. And in the world of The Way of Kings, the spren are a crossover from the world of thought into the material world—a constant reminder that something exists beyond what we can experience with our senses. And that alone is enough to make me love The Way of Kings.

But of course, that wasn’t the only thing I loved. The story is insanely well plotted . . . but plot is rarely why I read. If a book has the best plot in the world, but I’m not invested in the characters, I won’t finish it. But for all the people out there who care about plot—it’s excellent. And you will love it.

And as for the characters . . . I don’t even know where to begin.

Sanderson breaks basically all the rules in The Way of Kings. It’s a thousand pages long, it has four main points of view with about a dozen others scattered throughout, one character’s backstory is shared in alternating chapters throughout, and the sections of the book are separated by interludes comprised of several short stories from the perspectives of completely random characters. Oh, and also each chapter begins with an epigram from a fictional book, letter, or record.

It shouldn’t work.

And it does.

And I think the reason, as much as his incredible plot (I feel bad I don’t appreciate it more. . .) and unbelievable worldbuilding, is his mastery of character.

I don’t want to say too much . . . because I don’t want to give away the plot (and yes, I know I just said I don’t care about plot, but it will give away the characters’ stories, too). But I will say this: I found myself relating to every point-of-view character in this book.

Including the assassin, which was a little concerning.

But I empathized with the fifty-some-year-old nobleman who didn’t know if he was losing his mind or having visions.

I empathized with his twenty-year-old son who didn’t know whether to support his father or not.

I empathized with the nineteen-year-old slave who rose beyond his circumstances to lead his fellow slaves to a better life.

And naturally, I empathized with the seventeen-year-old girl who’s obsessed with study and drawing. (Swap in writing for drawing, and she’s basically me, so this one wasn’t surprising.)

But usually when I’m reading, I gravitate towards a specific character. (I have even been known to skip all the chapters from the other character’s perspectives . . . shh. . . .) With The Way of Kings, I genuinely didn’t know which character to care about more. Even when the characters were (unwittingly) causing harm to each other.

And I absolutely loved that Sanderson did not give his characters a victim mindset. Many of them have been through an incredible amount of suffering—and yet they still cling to honor. They still strive to do the right thing, even if they’re unable to, even if they don’t know what the right thing is. But they are never allowed to use their pasts as an excuse. Sanderson comes at his characters with an incredible amount of empathy—but he doesn’t make excuses for them, either. And watching those characters slowly learn to overcome the horrible circumstances they’ve been faced with made for one of the most hopeful stories I’ve read in a very long time.

And if that doesn’t convince you to read The Way of Kings, nothing will . . . so I’ll stop there.

Just go read it. (Well, unless you’re under 13. Then give it a few years. And then go read it.)

You may have noticed I’m deviating from my typical review structure—like in this book review—in this review. I’m not sure which one is more appealing to readers. What do you think? Let me know in the comments below!