my faves are in varying states of suffering for the next seven years at least, i need to go comatose like navani

overall, even though i was gagged by the ending, this installment *easily* falls into fourth or fifth place in my ranking of the five main stormlight books. this is definitely a finale, but it was mainly setting up a lot of ground work for the second arc. it took some reflecting to put my finger on what felt off with this book compared to the others but i finally figured it out: the derivation from our five part structure. i think that having the book split into ten days instead of our normal five parts messed up the pacing and dissolved some of the tension and stakes. the highs were high (hence my emotional breakdowns upon the completion of some character arcs) but unfortunately the lows were also low and my enjoyment lagged at points.

the characters are what makes the stormlight archive so special, but in this book, they were all isolated and off doing their own things. i was disappointed by the absence of characters interactions and pair ups that we deserved to see (bridge 4, kaladin/adolin/shallan, the kholins etc) - especially since this is a finale and we’ve spent thousands of pages with them by this point. AND if i had to see even one (1) more flashback in the spiritual realm, i was going to lose my damn mind!

despite all this, the implications for roshar and the wider cosmere are a LOT to think about. see you all in 2031!