Title: Warbreaker
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Published: 2009
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Synopsis: Princess Vivienna grew up knowing that one day she would wed the God King, ruler of a nearby enemy nation, but when the time comes for the king to send Vivienna for her wedding her father decides to send her younger sister Siri instead.
Siri has spent her life rebelling and ignoring her tutors. She knows nothing about the Court of Gods. Fearing for her sister and not sure what to do with her new found freedom, Vivienna travels to the kingdom where Siri was taken to help her escape. If only freeing Siri were that simple.
Review: Brandon Sanderson has once again crafted a beautiful, captivating fantasy world with awesome characters and mind blowing plot twists.
Before continuing I’d like to point out that this entire book is can be read for free on Brandon Sanderson’s website.
The main characters in this novel are all very different from one another. There is Vivienna, the oldest princess of Idris, who spent her whole life being trained for her life in the court of their enemy after her arranged marriage to the God King. Vivienna holds firm to her beliefs and has a strong sense of duty. Vivienna’s younger sister, Siri, has grown up being rebellious and ignoring her studies, so when Siri is sent to be married to the God King in her sister’s stead Siri finds herself entirely unprepared for life in the Court of Gods. Lightsong, a god who doesn’t believe in his own religion, is my personal favorite. Then there is the mysterious Vasher whose motives are hidden from the reader for most of the novel.
These drastically different perspectives allow Sanderson to reveal the world and the magic system in ways that our judgement is not clouded by character bias in spite of some characters who have very good reasons to either despise the or appreciate the people around them.
The magic system in this book continues to be one of Sanderson’s strengths. The magic of Awakening uses something called Biochromatic Breath to do everything from causing a rope to come alive and strangle you on its own to reanimating dead bodies. The ways in which this magic has affected society and the limitations of said magic were all well thought out and explained.
Lightsong’s debates with his priests about whether or not he was a god was one of my favorite parts of this novel. Something about the concept of an agnostic deity is just so hilarious yet thought provoking at the same time.
I have enough experience with plots though reading and writing now that plot twists rarely surprise me, especially if I have read multiple books by a particular author before. Somehow Sanderson’s twists are ones I still can’t entirely predict though I have now read ten Brandon Sanderson novels.
This book is currently a standalone and reads like one, but I’d be more than willing to read a sequel if Sanderson ever finds time between his many projects.
What readers should know: This is a fantasy novel, so naturally it contains magic. This book also features the deaths of some relatively prominent characters, but the violence isn’t graphic. Sex is mentioned, but the characters involved are married and everything is very fade to black. It’s all in all relatively tame, for an adult fantasy novel in particular.
Rating: This book had great characters, an unpredictable plot, and world building. I highly recommend this book to fans of Brandon Sanderson, high fantasy, and/or trying to get into Brandon Sanderson’s novels.
bluejaybooks 
This is one of my favourite Sanderson even though it’s an earlier novel, I felt that it had some of his best characterisation. I would love to see more of this world and magic system some day.
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It would be awesome if Nightblood (the current working title for the possible sequel) became a real thing! Unfortunately, it sounds like it won’t happen anytime soon with the outrageous number of projects Sanderson is working on, but *shrugs* so long as Sanderson keeps writing (preferably as quickly as possible) I’m happy, LOL.
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