This is the most divided I have ever felt about a Stormlight Archive book.

As I read through the beginning, I grew increasingly worried. For some reason, it just wasn't hitting. Why? Was something off? Why was I, despite my best efforts, just NOT able to immerse myself in the story? Was it me, or the book?

Luckily, by around the 70% mark the plot started to build, and I was safely hooked. Everything after that crashed toward the finish line with all the momentum and intensity expected from this massive "Avengers: Endgame" level fantasy event.

Overall, I think this book does stick the landing, resolving most of the countless threads of plot and character in a satisfying way, and setting up the future of the Cosmere.

Some standout details in no particular order:

• My boy Szeth-son-son-Vallano, Truthless of Shinovar. I have always loved him <3 and continue to love him <3 and I loved finally getting his backstory! It was a fascinating backstory, and explained a lot about both him and the worldbuilding. The way his family determined to go with him when he was first taken away by the military as a boy TRULY got me in the heart.

• Adolin continues to carry at least half this series on his back in my opinion. Every time I got to one of his chapters, it felt like a relief. His Azish siege was some of the best action and one of the most compelling storylines in the book, especially during the first half when it felt like almost nobody was doing anything elsewhere. I love his relationship with the Azish Prime, and the way the deadeye spren plot thread was resolved. Wholesome. Heartwarming. Inspiring.

• Gavinor :( :( :( :( :( No amount of sad face emojis will adequately express how I feel about this.

• Taln................................................. His is such a horrible, horrible story. When he stood up during the Azish siege, I was shook. That scene had serious resonance.

• I don't really like visions. I never really like them, in any medium and in any story. Dalinar and Navani's field trip through the Spiritual Realm was made bearable by the tension behind the worldbuilding mysteries they were unraveling. It was better than the extended time in Shadesmar in some of the other books, but not by much.

• TANAVAST IS ABSOLUTELY INTOLERABLE. I HATE HIM AND HIS STUPID ALL CAPS CHAPTERS.

• The ending... I was okay with. Dalinar's ending. Kaladin's ending. Despite not resolving everything, enough was resolved that I'm walking away from this book not feeling jilted.

• I understand The Sunlit Man a lot better now. Might need to reread.

• I still don't care that much about the singers, but I kind of like how the battle at the Shattered Plains was resolved. Feels good, feels right.

• "Honor is dead... but I'll see what I can do." ALRIGHT, KALADIN. WHY DID THIS HIT SO HARD AGAIN? For some reason this worked super well, even though I almost don't understand why. This whole time Kaladin was kind of just a hype man and helper on Szeth's journey, but for everything to end the way it did still somehow made perfect sense.

• Shallan, in this book, was possibly the least annoying she has ever been. I'll admit, I thought we had no more buried secrets to unearth from her incredibly avoidant psyche, but I was proven wrong.

• I don't care about any of the Heralds except Taln. I wish I did. It would have made the visions and Szeth storylines much more impactful.

• Did I mention how much I enjoyed the Azish siege? Adolin being a brilliant tactician AND social engineer... Adolin mentoring Yanagawan... Some very cool action scenes... An absolutely rip-roaring finale sequence...

All right. Now, let's talk about the concerning part:

The Cringe

I have always been a delighted cosmerenaut. I have cringed in the past at Sanderson things, but only the deliberately cringe and annoying things like Wayne, The Reckoners and Frugal Wizard's Guide. I have never been a huge fan of the quintessential Sanderson corny humor but, again except for in the aforementioned works, it has never really gotten in the way of my enjoyment. Certainly it has never been a real issue for me in the Stormlight Archive, with the possible exception of how annoying early Shallan was.

I read almost SEVENTY PERCENT of this book before I really got into it. That is CRAZY and extremely alarming, given that this is book five of the Stormlight Archive.

You have to ask yourself, what on earth is going on?!?

1. The first issue was the corny humor. It seemed really overwhelming and in-your-face at the beginning of the book, and kind of tonally dissonant. This book starts up RIGHT after the end of RoW, which was a massive, high-stakes battle and it takes place over the course of only ten days. In those ten days, everyone is staring down the potential end of the world as they know it. That is an absolutely breathless pace, and I'm therefore pretty surprised at how slow the beginning of the book felt. Why did everyone seem to have infinite time to crack awkward puns and genital/potty humor jokes at each other? Thankfully, this slowed WAY down as the plot actually picked up in the second half.

2. Second issue was the odd fakeness/shallowness of the characters. I have traveled with these people for five (LONG) books now, and I know and love all of them. I'm deeply invested in them and their inward journeys. So why, at the beginning of this book, could I NOT seem to connect with anyone? Shallan's relief over finally coming to a place of stability with her multiple personality issues. Kaladin's relief at his own stability, and beginning journey to focus on himself as well as helping everyone else. Adolin's continuing sense of inferiority and anger at Dalinar. Szeth grappling with his longstanding moral injury.

For some reason, all of this seemed very very shallow and extremely repetitive. These introspective passages came up so frequently and seemed so exactly the same that I was repeatedly thrown out of my immersion in the story during the first half of the book. I'm sitting there wondering why the heck I'm almost bored by hearing about these characters I have LOVED in the past? With how slow all of this felt in a book that takes place over only ten days, it seems like perhaps some tighter editing could have helped us out here.

3. Third issue was The Cringe.

Some things just seemed... off. Some things just didn't hit the way I would have expected them to. Kaladin's therapy shtick with Szeth, for one. I liked the beginning of this in RoW! But the way it was implemented over the course of their Life Changing Road Trip just seemed unrealistic and very cringe. If someone had tried that on Kaladin when he was at his worst, it would NOT have worked. So why are these hamfisted attempts at "Talk about it! You'll feel better! You deserve to be happy! This stuff wasn't your fault!" working on Szeth, who is probably worse off than Kaladin was?

Again, he had TEN DAYS to make a total breakthrough and heal Szeth's broken psyche. This is magnified with Nale, whom they had what, only two days with? It just doesn't seem real, and the way this was written was almost as maladroit and awkward as Kaladin's actual therapeutic attempts. The rapidly increasing usage of the word "therapy" just didn't work for me, either. You can handwave your way out of that by using Wit's offworld vocabulary as an explanation, but that doesn't make Kaladin's "No, I'm his therapist" quip any less embarrassing.

Kaladin's speech to the librarian after she was mean to Syl was cringe. Definitely something Cliopher Mdang would have said, and then everybody nearby would have clapped. Jasnah's debate with Odium was cringe. Not going to lie, I did skip most of the last chapter of that because I was just going "eugh, eegh, agh," all the way through it. Shallan's tension with Mraize was cringe. I cannot convey how much I do not care about Mraize or his relationship with Shallan, and frankly I'm surprised that SHE cares this much. I don't know how many near-miss encounters they had in the Spiritual Realm, but it felt like way too many.

Even some of the actual formatting made me raise an eyebrow, particularly, "It was all he could do to stand there. But stand. Kaladin. DID." It's hard to miss what this ostentatious punctuation and italics is trying to convey: the rousing crescendo of a Hans Zimmer orchestral theme in the background as the wind whips Kaladin's hair and the light dramatically streams down upon him.

This kind of scene happens semi-frequently in the Stormlight Archive, and most of the time I love it! But this particular prose was done so awkwardly and in-your-face that it punched me straight out of my immersion in the story at one of the most climactic moments. What about just writing words normally? I promise the reader can supply the suitable amount of drama for themselves based on the actual tone and content of the scene.

Lastly, some of the portrayal of the characters' issues seemed oddly wooden. This was present in Kaladin and Syl's development as they traveled with Szeth. I understand what they were talking about in establishing their identities separate from their need to help others/each other, but why did it just feel empty and repetitive when they were talking about it? I've never before had an issue caring and empathizing with Kaladin, of all people.

Renarin was another victim of this. His autism just seemed so very "here let me read a checklist of symptoms straight from the DSM-5." It didn't seem real to him, and I for some reason wasn't able to inhabit his perspective. This series has always gone out of its way to highlight things the characters were struggling with (most notably Kaladin's depression and Shallan's DID) but this time instead of feeling like a genuine expansion on a person's complex experience, it felt like ostentatious, unnecessary window dressing.

This is my first time writing anything seriously negative in a Cosmere review.

I enjoyed the book! After I got 60-70% through it felt like old times, like I was back on the solid ground of what I expect from this series. As I said, I thought it overall worked well as a colossal finale for a colossal story. I definitely want to know what happens next.

But for some reason the writing quality, especially in the first half, was just kicking me in the teeth.

This is genuinely upsetting and unsettling to me. I hope that this is just a wobbly step caused by Sanderson's extremely fast writing pace and his change in editors, and not my worst fear coming true. PLEASE don't tell me that I'm outgrowing his writing. The experience of reading an awesome book is so rare and precious that I would hate to lose that.

There's only one way to know for sure. I need to do a Cosmere reread.