The Wheel weaves what The Wheel wills.

This book is a fantastic story. I loved experiencing the world through these characters and Robert Jordan's prose are some of my favorite of all time. Reading this book was thrilling and immersive and everything you could ask for in a fantasy novel. Don't skip this one.

The pros:

- The prose (yes, that was intentional). I could listen to Robert Jordan describe paint drying and feel like it is the most important thing in the world. His storytelling deserves every bit of recognition it gets and more. It goes beyond his vocabulary and fluid descriptions. Jordan has a beautiful ability to portray mood, and his subtext was always impeccable. Detailed descriptions are one thing. Descriptions that flawlessly portray a feeling is something else entirely. There are only a handful of authors I've seen master this and Jordan is one of them. If I had a fragment of his gift with words I'd use it to adequetly describe how incredible his writing is.
- The world (and worldbuilding). It's cohesive, interesting, unique, tangible... it's everything you could want. I really liked how all the different world threads wove together, everything was connected and influenced by one another. The way the characters discover and experience the world really shows the scale and stakes surrounding them. (On that note, the narrating characters are all extremely inexpirienced/sheltered, and Jordan is able to use this to describe his world to the reader without feeling inorganic or bombarding the reader with exposition. I know it's a trope, but it's used intentionally and is very well executed here). The societal and political elements we're exposed to are complex and profound, there's always more than meets the eye. That made for realistic and sympathetic settings and I really liked that. But most especially, I loved how immersive it felt! Picking up this book immediately transports you into the story. It's escapism at it's finest, Robert Jordan crafted a truly remarkable experience and sensation.
- The history of the world. I think my favorite moment in this book was towards the very beginning, when Morraine is narrating the history of the Two Rivers. I remember finishing those pages and being surprised at how close to my face I was holding the book, to give you an idea of how engrossed I was. I was utterly captivated. By the title alone I'm sure you've guessed how important history is to this series, and the moments we learn about the past brought so much to the story. Ordinarily I don't care much for history in fiction books, not beyond general context that fleshes out the world. But oh my, this changed my mind. Done right, it's enthralling and inspirational.
- The characters. I love the character work. Love love love it. I admit it took a hefty bit of book to really develop and understand them, but especially once the narrating POVs change, I really appreciated the character's depth and quality. You do have to approach this subject with the knowledge that this is the first book of 14 (15 including the prequel) so don't expect a full character arc. But the seeds planted? Yummy. I can already tell how phenomenal it's going to be to watch these characters grow and develop. And the mini character arcs they undergo in this first book alone are compelling as well.
- The women. There was an effortless feminism in Robert Jordan's portrayal of his female characters. They were all unique and complex. I liked that their strengths were individualized and genuine, and didn't feel artificial. There was no question of their capabilities, so the narration avoided the common pitfall of having to constantly remind the reader of a character's strength. The women in this book just exude a quiet power you can't deny. It was refreshing.
- The character flaws. I love good, flawed characters. I liked how human the cast felt. I also really enjoyed how Jordan approached the flaws in his characters. They weren't villainized, just unapolagetically flawed. Especially the ladies. Often, I think, female characters get saddled with "flaws" that, rather than being actual faults, are just thinly-veiled, mocking criticisms of inate femininity, which portray womanhood as something inherently wrong and shameful. Jordan gives his women real flaws, just as human and complicated as his male characters, and treats them as such. Truly well done character work.
-  The foreshadowing. Sometimes, you'll know it when you read it, sometimes it'll hit you all at once that the threads the story had been weaving were always there, but coming together in that moment you see the final picture. Excellently done and served the plot perfectly. Like history, prophesy is important to the story, and it always served to make me want to know more and that's exactly the kind of foreshadowing that belies a great novel.
- The portrayal of differing ideals within the world. This really stood out to me, because with so much political intrigue and warring ideas of morality it would be easy to polarize the ideals into distinct "good" and "bad". There is an oppresive and unsympathetic evil presence, but the world and its inhabitants  were all shades of grey. I love when morality is shown as different priorities and methods as opposed to fundamentally moral or immoral philosophies. Disagreements on how to fight rather than if. etc. There are so many examples of this, I'm sure I won't describe them well, but trust me, it's well executed.
- An example of the above point: The Aes Sedai. The Aes Sedai are described as being the primary opposition to the Dark One, and while you'd think this would earn them a reputation of goodness, it doesn't. They're othered by the population due to ignorance and fear. They're powerful, and intelligent, and not all good or bad. Even within the Aes Sedai exists sects of disagreeing ajas. The mystique surrounding the White Tower added so many layers of depth and mystery. The underlying distrust forced the main characters to be sure of their convictions, while also suspending their preconceived notions of the world or risk everything. It was exciting, and made for an exptremely compelling dynamic. I can't wait to see this play out in future books.
- Another fascinating example of well-intentions-turned-corrupt: The Children of the Light. The religious extremists of the world. Drunk on power and quick to oppress others to establish their "holier-than-thou" presence. Another group that actively denounces the Dark One, and yet antagonizes upstanding people and citizens. One of the darker shades of grey, certainly. This was depicted really well, them using the guise of rooting out Darkfriends to hurt and bully people. The hypocracy is strong, and very clearly shown, but even still I liked the dichotomy between this perspective and the very real intentions of the members. They also challenge the 'good versus evil' narrative by being just as discriminatory towards the Aes Sedai as the Darkfriends. It creates a trifecta of extremes and power. Enemies who, while sharing the goal of defeating and overcoming evil incarnate, are so diametrically opposed they lose sight of that entirely. I loved it.
- My last examples for this point, the traveling people and the ogier. Smaller and less influential groups, but I have to mention them because I just can't ignore how they contribute to this point. The peaceful and pacifist traveling people, who refuse to involve themselves or fight back, believing the best way to combat the Dark One's influence is by living a life of tranquility and forgiveness. And the long-living Ogier, who contradict their brute appearance with a deeply sacred reverence for nature and beauty. Drastically opposite the severe Aes Sedai and relentless Children, but united in purpose. And yet, unceasingly oppressed by those who misunderstand or disagree with them. This theme was so prevalent and interesting, and I really, really loved this aspect of the world.
- The magic. The One Power. So. Good. I loved how it was described and the way it works. I'm eager to learn more about it as the series progresses and characters learn to use it.
- The rising stakes. Gradual and realistic. At every triumph, a new threat rose. I liked the pacing of the exposure to the forces the main characters are facing. As the characters learn more and more of the truth behind the things happening to them, the unearth more and more of the danger. The stakes built naturally, and I could really feel the urgency and desperation of these characters getting to their destinations. The danger was tangible.

The cons:

- The pacing. I admit, the pacing of this book was a little slow. Robert Jordan builds suspence very very gradually, slowly introducing his world and fleshing it out. This was surely intentional and done very well from an author's standpoint, but from a reader's perspective it was dragging a bit. Personally I don't like books that are too fast-paced for me to enjoy the setting, I like to take my time. I didn't mind it as much as some people might, but even for me it was slow. Just something to keep in mind when you start the book. (And, listen to the audiobook of you can. The narrtion is incredible and really helped during the less exciting parts of the story)
- The "mystery". As an avid fantasy reader and enthusiast, I know a chosen one when I see one, and I can sniff out misplaced prejudices. And so can most people. There are certain aspects of this book that are portrayed as mysteries, and revealed in such a manner that suggests a big reveal, that are not surprising. It didn't really bother me, and it didn't hurt the experience, because while the characters are most definitely in the dark, the story doesn't rely on mystery to be intriguing so it doesn't matter if you see something coming/know something before the characters do.
- Egwene. Okay. Everything I wrote earlier about Jordan's women do not apply to Egwene. If the rest of the characters start out one-dimensional and reveal their depth throughout the story, she starts out zero-dimensional. And stays that way. She's a bag of sand that says and does nothing of importance in the entire 800 pages of this book. Complete dead weight that doesn't add a single thing to the plot. My friends and family that have read this book say I'll sing a different tune later, so I'm holding out hope for some character development. Or just, a character (she doesn't qualify for character status in this book. I've seen quasi-sentient magical objects with more personality than Egwene). Hopefully she gets better. I'm trying as best I can to save my judgement, but in this book? :(

Other/neutral comments:
- The beginning. It's no fault of the book, but it took me a while to invest emotionally into the story and characters. That isn't uncommon with high fantasy and dense worldbuilding, but it's worth noting. The characters start out pretty one-dimensional and archetypal, but they don't stay that way long (except Egwene), as the story unfold their depth appears, as I mentioned earlier. And once I did get more invested, I couldn't put this down!
- Sometimes I didn't recognize the fantasy elements because I thought they were metaphors or vivid imagery. This one is completely on me. I this the best way to describe this is with an example: Lan has a really cool, color-changing claok. His cloak is exclusively described through the perspective of characters who have never seen a color-changing cloak, and therefore decribed as "seeming to change colors" with different environments. I know this is probably just me, but I was just picturing a dark cloak, one of those colors that appers differently relative to the colors beside it. Like some people's eyes, or manilla folders (are they orange or yellow!?). I didn't realize until I started reading The Great Hunt that it actually changes colors. There are enough examples of this to embarrass me, but this one exemplifies it best. Bottom line, this book has cool fantasy things, but also some intense metaphors to describe ordinary things. Sometimes I couldn't tell the difference (but I'm not that smart... so... my bad).
- The Tolkein influence. There's definitely some aspects of the story that are reminiscent of Lord of the Rings. For some reason I see a lot of people note this as a criticism. I could write a dissertation on why I really don't think this is a bad thing, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a fantasy book written after Tolkein's time that doesn't draw from him a little bit. He's influential for a reason. And besides, Wheel of Time is definitely different enough that it isn't even nearly ripping anyone off. But instead of a long-winded essay about constructive inspiration, I'll just say if you like LOTR you'll like this book, simple as that.
- The Dune influence. For all I said above, I have to be honest I see more similarities between this book and Dune than I do with LOTR. I may be biased, but hear me out: It's set in a time period so far in the future it resembles the past, there's a society of witchy women than scheme and run the political scene from the shadows that people respect out of fear but ultimately mistrust, there's a masculine and feminine side to the magic system that's inaccessible to men (except a special, chosen man who can do what all the women can already do), themes critical of religious extremism, warrior desert people, the future is knowable through prophesy and yet unreliable and changeable, etc. This book is nothing like Dune in tone or story, but as a Dune fan it was fun to notice these things.
- The plot twists. They didn't creep up on me, I aniticpated just about everything that happened. The exitement of the story doesn't at all rely on mystery, so I don't actually think the story suffered for this. In fact, I think the only suffering in this way was for those who recommended this series to me and watched me predict all the reveals. I honestly should put this under pros, because it really just proves the attention to detail Robert Jordan had and the level of forethought that went into the plot. If you pay attention you'll be well rewarded.

The little things:
- The traveling people. I really liked the culture. They were so vibrant and kind! And the emphasis on singing and dancing was refreshing in the middle of such a tense plotline. I liked how they contrasted with Perrin's nature. I just really liked them!
- The vocabulary/cultural slang. It was such a small thing, but I loved it. And it was versatile, sometimes fantasy books just pick one or two fantasy swears and it gets boring and repetitive. I found it quite creative in Wheel of Time. When I was really in the throes of reading I had to stop myself from saying "light blind you!" in mixed company.
- Everyone and their mother had a crush on Rand? I know he's tall but it was excessive.
- The travel. I liked the details in Rand and Mat's journey: entertaining for their keep and hitchhiking. It would have been easy to insert a time-skip or half-hearted summary of a long travel, so even if the story was slow during these parts, I did appreciate the realism.
- Perrin's wolf thing!
- That moment with Lan and Nynaeve. I love how it was slowly built up over small interactions and moments. And then The Moment happened and had me genuinely kicking my feet and giggling. 
- Mat's descent into madness. I liked how clear it was that something was wrong, while still being ambiguous with what or how. Especially in the beginning, when it could be more eaily attributed to homesickness or weariness. The pacing was perfect. 

I think I'm really going to like this series. You definitely have to approach it as the first book in an epic series as opposed to a stand-alone. What really stood out to me though is just how impressive the immersion was, reading this book reminded me of what reading can be, what you can expirience. It's really a certain kind of magic. I love it!