Kip is.... frustrating to read about. He's 15 years old, and acts like it! Which I guess is good writing but also makes him hard to root for, especially because he's not really rooting for himself through most of the book. He's also a bit of a male version of a Mary Sue. The magic system in this world is complex and challenging, with a school to teach it, and yet Kip can do a lot of it based on innate ability since he comes from a power family of these magic users. The book kind of tries to explain this by saying the "will" to do something is the most important, but honestly, he's doing some incredible things with no training at all and that challenged my suspension of disbelief.

First we have Kip. The peasant hero. A young boy, fat and immature son of a somewhat abusive, neglectful mother who is a drunk and drug addict, he's also the illegitimate son of (duh, duh, duh) the Prism (read King or Emperor here). The Prism is a ruler (sort of king/religious leader/head wizard) who was forced to fight a war against his brother, who claimed to be The Prism, to see who's the REAL Prism. It was called The False Prism's war. The Prism (Gavin) was forced to kill his brother (Dazen). EXCEPT!!!! He didn't kill Dazen. The Prism's brother is imprisoned in a magical cell underneath the Prism's palace where only the Prism and his room slave know he is kept. EXCEPT!!! Dazen isn't the one in the cell! Dazen defeated Gavin took his identity and replaced him as Prism, imprisoning the elder (and less worthy brother). So...the Prism is Dazen, but everyone thinks he's Gavin...got that?Not to mention how beautiful all the visualizations are. It's like this book was written just for me to see in my mind. :) Story: great. Writing: great. I'm curious to see where all the different light beams threads will lead.

Every word was a choice. No one forced the author to write about ridiculously debilitating period for the main female character. No one forced him to tell us about how physically attractive each female character was or if their breasts and nipples were satisfying enough. With over four million copies sold, Brent Weeks is one of the fastest-selling fantasy authors of all time.I can actually see how Weeks is a very successful fantasy writer as the majority of fantasy fans are males between the ages of 12-22. His books must really speak to them. The plot is very well done, and I find myself very interested to find out more about what these characters are going through. Without spoiling anything, one plot thread specifically revolved around someone imprisoned, and I absolutely love where that story is taking the reader.

Well the problem with Brent Weeks' writing is that you feel like you are being told a story by a very creative and imaginative 15 year old boy, with no real life experience and not a lot of study under his belt. The focus on sex is exactly how a 15 year old boy would focus on it. The more than necessary gore in battle scenes is exactly how a 15 year old boy would describe it. The cuss words thrown in at the most awkward places, just to sound cool, the use of teen slang, the way things are described with the focus on the most random things under the situation, for example the focus on womens' breasts in the middle of a battle scene and the way the characters think and act are all exactly how a 15 year old boy would describe it.

AUTHOR OF THE LIGHTBRINGER SERIES AND THE NIGHT ANGEL TRILOGY

There are other plot points like the Prism being forced by circumstances to kill most of the woman he loves family (I don't recall any of them being named Tybalt...but I won't swear to it)... But he harbours quite the secret. Truth be told, I figured it out very early on in the book. But that didn't diminish the payoff when it was actually revealed to the reader.