Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson; fantasy; 688 pages (about 25 hours as an audio book)Idris and Hallandren are two neighboring kingdoms on the brink of war. To fulfill a decades-old treaty (and hopefully buy time to build his troops), the king of Idris sends is youngest daughter to marry the legendary God-King of Hallandren, where the dead return as gods with incredible powers, and sorcerers called Awakeners draw their power from human souls. While Siri struggles to overcome her fear of her inhuman husband, other plans are moving within the city, both for an against the war.
My friends have been bugging me to read Sanderson for ages ("Not his kids' stuff! He REAL books!!" If you ask me, his Alcatraz books are amazing enough). So I admit I picked this up more to placate them than anything else. Of course, then I got TOTALLY SUCKED IN.
Sanderson's world is unique and engaging: the source of magic is Breath, which can be gathered from ordinary people and stored and manipulated by Awakeners. Color plays a huge role in this process, and is almost a magical source in and of itself. In decadent Hallandren, humans who have died heroically Return and are worshiped as gods, and are ruled over by the Hallandren God-King; to the North, stoic Idrians shun color, ornament, and ostentation, and accuse the Awakeners of consuming people's souls.
On top of the wonderful world-building, the characters are awesome as well. While I got a little annoyed with how the narrator of the audio book voiced some of the characters, but I genuinely cared about EVERY character by the end of the book, which is pretty rare for me. In fact, I found myself wishing that this were the first in a series, so I could see more of this world and its people. Sanderson left more than a few questions unanswered, so I can hope that he might return here one day.
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