I think I needed something that slanted optimistic in its atmosphere. And a good long adventure with a lot more installments. Overall I'm very happy to have read this, huge bombastic story in the background with lots of mysteries, genuinely interesting characters with their own journeys, a world that feels alien from the outset, I think Sanderson really must care about the worlds he's writing. He's not very elegant about informing the reader, to be sure. The editing in the latter chapters is a little patchy. One thing I'll say about the epic storyline is that it reminds me a great deal of Warcraft, in a good way, I think I'm just at a point in my life to be receptive to that kind of story right now. But actually, at no point did the narrative feel as if it were dragging, no, it was full all the way through. If I weren't in a certain mood, I suspect the only difference would be that the length would be tiresome. Like I said though, I ate up every little bit of worldbuilding about this world, from Alethi society to the highstorms to the spren, it all felt like very fresh fantasy. About the only thing I felt was a little TOO video game-y in a negative way was the Vorin system of devotions and Callings and Elevations. I handled that well enough with how Szeth's Surgebinding was talked about, but the suspiciously neat, sysrenatised and progressive system of religion felt a little too... immersion-breaking? Too much like levelling up. Thankfully it was a rather small part of the whole book. I will probably rewrite this review in a more orderly fashion later.