alaterdate | The Way of Kings (Reply)

It took me a week to get through the audiobook for Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings. I own this book in E-book format. I got the free copy from TOR. I tried to read it twice, but didn't make it past chapter 1 either time. Since I'm currently playtesting a Sims challenge for someone I thought that I might as well listen to audiobooks while I play instead of just listening to music. Browsing through the 'currently available' section of my library's audiobook selection I grabbed Way of Kings because what better time to listen to a 45 hour audiobook right?

Now, I did not play the sims like a full-time job over the last week, but I DID listen to this audiobook like it was one. First, I only had two weeks to get through it so there was added pressure from that. Second, it's so long that seeing the hour count whittle down felt like an achievement. I listened to it while driving, while cooking, during dinner, before going to bed, and even once while I was in the shower (couldn't hear well enough so had to scrap doing that lol).
The Way of Kings became my life.
I felt miserable.

It's 5am time to start listening to the Way of Kings audiobook!
Yes, honey... *withers*
The worst part is that I don't hate it! There's just something about Sanderson's books that makes my brain feel like it's slogging through a bog. It took me a whole year to get through Elantris which I had picked up because of the plot and had no idea who this Sanderson guy was yet. And I liked Elantris too, but I also just could not read it for shit. Opening it up made me groan in exasperation.

I don't remember this being the case much in Elantris, but I really noticed it when I tried to start Mistborn: Sanderson repeats himself way too much. Most of Way of Kings is Kaladin going through the same thing over and over and over again. And I get it, but dear god I GET IT, please can we move on. Paint dries faster than his plots unfold. And no, 700 pages of character study is not needed to make the conflicts interesting. So much, especially with Kaladin, could have been compressed.

I know I binged it like a madman because it was an audiobook I had to return and I definitely would have taken A LOT longer to go through the book version, but I probably would have never finished it if I didn't do this. And I did take an entire day off to decompress during the week.
The thing is I liked the characters and I wanted to hear about their stories, but it shouldn't have taken 30 1/2 hours for something to happen that made me shocked. And then for that same kind of shock to be repeated much less impactfully later :^\

Okay, not even the much touted "brandosando worldbuilding genius" saves this book from being a right slog. That probably made it worse, because almost every cultural thing described is just like "oh, that's neat that they have that I guess" and then NOTHING, it has no impact ok. Or is like... surgeons who can't read, I'm fucking sobbing.......

I'm Kaladin, 19, and I don't know how to fucking read.
The safe-hand thing too, while pretty neat has to be so inconvenient. What if you're left-handed????
Alright... I think that's all my griping done, now some fun stuff.

I do not know how anyone's name is spelled :^D

Kaladin is definitely like that <-. However, could also be Khaladin, but I don't think so.
His dad's name is like Llauren, what the heck is his name? Brother: Tigon, Tigan? Bridgemen I remember: Rock, Teft, Lopin, Dehy who I thought died but there's two of them *squints* Denny??, M-M- Moashe? Shin. SYL.

Shallan. Yasna, her mentor. The ardent Capsule, Kabzol, what is this man's name? Lmfao. Idfk her brothers and who ever else.

Dalinar. Aedalyn and RRRRR forgot, his sons. Nephew Alohcar, not to be confused with Alucard. High Prince Thaddeus? Saddeus? *shrugs*. Gavilar. Nevani, Nehvani, I'm partial to the H but I doubt it.

Wit/Hoid. Seth. Do not remember that king's name..... That's all the names I remember lol. Help.

Aaaaand spoiler stuff!

Let's start with Shallan's shit. MY GOD, she's annoying lmfao. I did enjoy when she was accidentally drawing those creepy creatures. I got such a good mental image of them for myself, very cool. Their heads are... Minecraft End Crystals.... Capsule was annoying as hell, I HATED him. Also I can't believe he was poison/antidoting her im fucking sjhvdsgsdhhbds. I drove my sister to work and made her listen to the book and then I ended up having to tell her what happened with Shallan like it was celebrity gossip lmfao. Uhm idk about Shallan, but Yasna is #girlboss #GOALS. Also ofc that "nice and dull" king is evil lmfaooo

Kaladin. MY FUCKING BOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. I'm love him :^3c Sanderson got me fucking GOOD with his damn foreshadowing/revelations with Kaladin. Legit every flashback I was like "okay, THIS is the guy he killed. THIS is the guy he killed" only for HAHAHHA he didn't even like legit murder anyone im fucking laughing, so good. SO suprised he gave up the shards though! I thought for sure they were gonna be stolen directly from him & I hope uhh Adan? dies thx. Also I thought the eventual (bc ofc it was coming) flashback about his brother's death was gonna be way too tense and dramatic for me and make me close the book, but it was a less brutal repeat of when that shardbearer killed his first squad so I was like Eh? That's it, ok. The only thing that annoyed me with him was that we kept having to go through the same shit and the same conversations over and over. I liked him, but I seriously could have done without the lag. Also I know from passing that he ended up working for Dalinar so every time they like slightly crossed paths I was mentally shaking Kaladin by the lapels and screaming. Lastly, if you've read the series feel free to spoil me about if he gets a sword because I do not want him to, swords are cool, but the Spear is KING.
P.S. The audiobook narrator for Kaladin's parts gave Lopin an Australian accent and I loved it so much, Lopin is my fave of Bridge 4 because of it lol.

Dalinar.

Lying guy: "They surrounded him with hammers and were taking pieces of shardplate as trophies."
Me: ...Lobster.
At first Dalinar was pretty meh to me and he has the least amount of chapters. It wasn't until he beat up his nephew that I was like Oh, okay. His parts did set up the cool factor of the world (the Knights and the mysterious history) nicely though. See the stuff that is cool and plot-relevant I do wanna hear about, I don't need a treatise on grass 🤧

Did I like the book? *strained* Yes. But a 1000 page set-up is such a freakin' hurdle. I can handle a long set-up, but this stretches the limits of endurance. I didn't come back to this book (almost) every day because I was excited about it, it was because I wanted to defeat it. While the end revelations, which is part of what Sanderson is known for, were indeed pretty neat they were nowhere near exciting enough to warrant the rest of the boring stuff. Elantris's last few chapters were exciting and jaw dropping in equal measure to the boring family dinners with Sarene I had to read through. Finding out who the bad guy was, and characters linking up was just not that cool. Hell, the only reason I even cared so much about the latter was because I already knew it was gonna happen and wanted to see how, I can't even imagine reading this without that foreknowledge. Would have just been like "Oh, that's cool I guess" like everything else revealed. I'm sure in relation to the rest of the series, going back and reading this or remembering parts of it would be thought provoking and exciting, but on its own I simply cannot hand it a basket of merits.

Really what I most enjoyed is that the main characters are so staunch. And Kaladin, who is my favorite, reminded me a lot of Raoden who I also loved. I really enjoyed these characters not giving up on their goals and stances even in the face of despair. I think the themes are already shaping up nicely even though Way of Kings really feels like it has a pittance of overall plot. The world shaking things (I guess what Seth was up to) were side notes. It was like listening to a friend relay their bad day while the news is playing breaking alerts behind them.

The way people talk this series up is part of the problem for me. I don't need to think up justifications about why I was bored to death. And it is quite disheartening to feel like I'm just somehow missing something that makes this book great (which is probably the other books/rest of the story which are also 1000 page commitments). And it sucks because I do like these characters and I like stories about religion, but can I get the Sparknotes ~~Stormnotes~~ version please.