Book #56: Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson

This book is the sequel to The Way of Kings, which I read last month and raved about. It is the beginning of a supposedly ten-book series, so this is book #2 in that series--but only these two have come out so far. And I feel like they've done so much already! In the first book, you follow all of these distinct characters who are all starting off in different places, but in this book they all begin to come together and make progress towards, well, saving the world from its ultimate destruction. The same main characters of Dalinar, Kaladin, and Shallan are still the people we follow here, plus a whole bunch of others, but these three all come together in this book and begin to progress in becoming the Knights Radiant, by honing their powers and following their oaths that they've made. Something that I love about these characters is that they are so distrustful of others--they have to be, because they've all been painfully betrayed--but they are each really and truly honorable and trying to do the right things for the right reasons. In fact, when Kaladin begins to go down the wrong path and make the wrong choice, he loses his powers--so he HAS to do the right thing for the right reasons, or else he becomes nothing. He is focused on protecting others around him, even when he continually fails, while Shallan is focused on finding the truth even when she has to lie to get to it. It is so uplifting to read a book about these totally flawed and broken people who continuously sacrifice themselves for a greater good and make these hard, good choices because they want to do what is right. I read this book over two weeks and it got taken away today so I HAD to finish it last night, and read for about five hours because I couldn't see it get taken away without finishing it. I can't wait to see where else the series goes after this. They defeated the Parshendi in battle (their main enemies) and found the ancient hidden city of Urithiru, but they still have a lot of stuff to do still apparently.

Small aside note: My favorite scenes in this book were the duel where Adolin is fighting four Shardbearers to one, and then his brother steps in to help him and then Kaladin--and they defeat them despite all odds. The other was when Kaladin and Shallan were in the chasms together and have to make their way back to camp, and how they have hints of having feelings for each other. There's only about 8000 more pages to get through for the end of this story, so maybe they won't end up together, but you know. I liked it.