The train has slowed down ever so slightly 👀
It was still amazing! But for the first 30 - 40% of the book it was pretty uneventful and meh.

It felt like the first half of this book was actually just DLC story extra from the previous book, and the other half of the book felt like a actual main book. 

So apart from the weird pacing and uneventfulness, the rest was as epic as usual.

The point of this book was to progress Lindon as a character and his power, reveal more of Suriel and the Abidan's story, and delving more into the Dreadgod's powers and past.

But now for the Abidan.
What's their reason for being created?
They're militarised, organised, and constantly recruiting. The whole purpose of Cradle is for people to rise high enough to ascend and join the Abidan army.

Heres my question though, why? 

The Mad King and the other Executives that betrayed the Abidan, before the Executives were created, the Abidan all followed the Way and were bound by rules and fate and thus couldn't turn on each other. So then who was their enemy? Nobody? So then they decided to make an Executive who didn't have to follow the rules and could interfere and change Fate. It betrayed them. They made another Executive, it betrayed them. And they kept creating more and more Executives and they kept and kept betraying them. Seems to me, they should have stopped making executives, right? Without the Executives, there was no enemy. So why were they this big galactic army before the Executives were even created??? Who or what was out in space that could pose a threat to them?

Edit:
I have just learned that the Cradle series is, in fact, part of a larger universe called the Williverse, and that there are 3 other series connected to Cradle and all feature the Abidan. So, I presume if I had started Will Wight by reading Traveler's Gate Book 1, I would have a clearer picture of the origins and purpose of the Abidan.

OHMYGODTHETRAINISSTILLGOING
OH.MY.GOD.THE.TRAIN.IS.STILL.GOING
OHHH MYYY GODDDD THE TRAIN IS STILL GOINGG!!!!!

This is the best book. So far.
This is peak Cradle.
This is the book.
Until the next book 🤣

I...cant even describe the epicness I just got sucked into.

My absolute favourite part of this book was that

Lindon lost, and had to have his own journey to advance and understand himself while the big tournament was Yerin's way of advancing and fixing herself.

God this book was so clever, so so clever, it was this perfectly woven intricate piece of silk.
This book was fast paced, gripped me harder than a vice, excited me more than any other book I can recall, and boy was it a wild ride. 

Next stop: Book 9, Bloodline 😎

He's done it again! He's done it again!
Wight has done it again! Let's keep the Cradle train going!!! 🚂

This was non-stop gripping, the world building, the character progression, the new characters, the stakes, the challenges to overcome, heck- even the interlude were decent, especially towards the end. This whole book was awesome, I can't decide if I liked this one more than the last, I think they're pretty even 🤯

FINALLY!
FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY!
YERIN GOT SOME LOVE FROM WIGHT AND SOME AWESOME CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT! 🥳🥳🥳
HUZZAAAH!!!
And boy did he deliver...oh boy did he!
This is so far the best book in the series, hands down, for me this is peak Cradle.
This was like a roller-coaster of action, world building, politics, friendships, magic, lore, character dynamics and suspense.

I do watch non-spoiler reviews and series recommendations, I've seen videos from The Book Guy, Petrik Leo and Chris Reed Reads all reccomending Cradle, and I'd heard that once Cradle reaches the halfway point...as in this book...the series reaches its best self and shoots to the end like a rocket 🚀
From this book alone, I believe them completely.

Okay so where to start, character development all around was brilliant, Wight gave the three main characters the same quality of attention to character development and their magic progression. Eithen didn't exact get much attention, but that's okay because I don't think it was necessary for the plot of this book.

Wight used the three main character's journey to Underlord as a way to flesh out the character's. To begin the process, you must first understand the true reason you wanted to practise the Sacred Arts. This allowed us to get deep into their heads and understand who they are fundamentally as a person, and I think it was a very clever method of doing so.

Yerin got great character development and Wight killed two birds with one stone by using her Blood Shadow and their interactions to help flesh out the depth of both characters and her magic.

Mercy's backstory was super interesting and somewhat still mysterious and I suspect full discovery of her family's magic will change how we think the magic of the world works 🤔

As for Lindon, he's 18 now, and his journey to Underlord had a lot of layers, such as it being his journey from a boy to a man.

This really felt like the first time Lindon had a fully fledged fight and took a life.

His relationship with Dross is really fun and brings a lot of lightness to the story, and he's also used as another plot device to better understand the mind of Lindon.

Now this business with upgrading Dross which in turn upgrades Lindon mind, it's fun, I like it, but it also felt like cheating for a while, then I realised the point of this world is to survive and everyone else won't hold back and so why should he? Fuck em, Lindon you go cheat and get every advantage you can and show em how to win with a combo of hard work, hoarding, luck, friends and cheating 😂

My review would be massive if I fully went into how awesome the world building was, which it was, and now I can't bloody wait to see what happens!

All the twists at the end, goddammit Will Wight 🤣

A theory of mine btw:

I think Lindon and all of Sacred Valley are direct descendants of the Blackflame Sacred Arts users, and the reason why they aren't allowed leave Sacred Valley and think Gold is the highest you can possibly achieve, is because the leaders of Sacred Valley have done this deliberately to prevent any Blackflame users from rising up, as they're so dangerous and feared by the Empire. This is why Lindon is able to use Blackflame so well, and why Orthos has arrived at Sacred Valley looking for his sister, I think he thinks this too and wants to see for himself 🧠

This book felt as amazing as Blackflame did, I would have gave it the same rating of 4.5, except for I don't like how Wight has been progressing Yerin's character development.

I understand Lindon is the main character, and so he gets most of the attention and "screentime", that's okay as I really like Lindon and his character development and power progression in this book, however, it really feels like Wight has just not cared about Yerin enough to give her development the same level of attention, which I don't think is right.

Imagine if we had the Stormlight Archive, we know Kaladin is the main character, but there's other interesting characters too. It feels like all these characters get the same quality of character development as the main character does. In Cradle however, this isn't so, and is the most obvious with Yerin.

I really liked her character, we're seeing Lindon growing exponentially, and then at the end

we're getting told Yerin is just as powerful as him now, yet it felt like she did fuck all to achieve it. Wight had Lindon being hunted down by multiple people, exploring places of power, training, studying, growing, over days and weeks. His progression to Truegold felt earned.
Yerin's power progressed in this book by camping and essentially farming local enemies when she peeps her head out of the magically veiled tent.

It felt so bloody lazy and disrespectful to her character, who's a hardened warrior who's been though so much.

Now for the parts I liked!
The beginning was amazing, it really drew me in and had me hooked.

I think the Egg at the beginning was an easter egg or inspired by the Behelit egg from the manga series Berserk.

Loved seeing Lindon from a strangers perspective for the first time. His intimadating appearance makes people afraid of him, then as soon as he opens his mouth they realise he's a polite man and probably a pushover. Then they can't see past his core veils and think he's a weak low gold and thus underestimate him. It's brilliant and I hope he keeps that act up!

Wight has got so good now at explaining the magic system, and I think he does this best by describing how it makes the characters feel.
Describing it this way makes us imagine it and how it feels and then we understand it better

The training montages Lindon went through was awesome and I fucking loved it! 🥳

I'm curious what's happening with Eithen, doesn't feel like much is happening with him but I feel this book was most focused on progressing Lindon.

I LOVE Dross! Great addition! I hope he stays stuck to Lindon!

Now I'm onto Underlord! 😎

Have to say this book was pretty disappointing.
It felt like this wasn't a main book but some in-between novella. It's like I missed a book that was better written and had a big conflict in it, and this book was a little novella to accompany that to give you the perspective of other smaller characters during the main book.
(Like how there's a book called Elantris, and then Sanderson brought out The Hope of Elantris, a novelette of other characters perspectives' set during the main book, Elantris)

Except,

this

the main book??? 😵💀

I don't know how we went from such an action packed, gripping, and incredibly fast-paced book full of intriguing world progression, amazing magic discoveries, new characters that were great and interesting and actual conflict that feels like it was meant to happen and the clues were there and it had a purpose to the narrative. 
How'd we go from that...

So I'll start with one good thing of this book:
The improvements. I believe the interludes were done much better in this book, it felt like I understood things better. Great!

Now for the rest of the book.
The whole book felt anticlimactic, rushed, yet slower than the other books.

I have absolutely no idea why Eithen let Daisho use the Archstone at all, surely it would have been smarter to get him to reveal it in front of the head of the Skysworn? This is Eithen, of course he could have manipulated that into happening.
It would have done everything he wanted, shown they stole a forbidden artifact against the empire, shown he had murderous intend for simply possessing it, shown himself to be someone putting himself about his clan and the entire empire. He would have been shamed to bits.
It did not need to be used at all. This entire big event felt so engineered and forced and neutered. It literally felt like there was no stakes, nor was I even invested in anything, because it was so blatantly fabricated instead of a good build up and actual consequences happening and the enemies being scarier.

The entire big conflict event was shite.
Seriously. I felt zero stakes. It came out of nowhere, didn't feel necessary, and of course wrapped up off camera at the end while everyone huddled together hiding.
Lindon levelled up to high gold, nice...off camera! 😑
What I've loved about the series is that we get to see how Lindon and Yerin grow and level up and become more powerful, that really felt completely missing from this book.
The enemies were awful, they spawn from blood no matter how small? Awesome.
Executed well? Nope.

It really felt like the characters did nothing in this book; no progression, no advancement, unnecessary, stakeless, shoehorned-in conflict, wrapped up piss easily off-camera.

There was like 4 great and memorable scenes, and that's it.

Also Lindon losing his arm and gaining some rare unique experimental remnant arm was awesome, annnnd nothing really happened with it other than comedic use.

Yerin now

controls her evil passenger? Great.

Now it'd be interesting to see how she progresses in the next book.

Jai Long has fucked off with his sister and the book literally told us they'd never meet Lindon again, it literally said that, it didn't imply it, nor did it leave it to what-if, it straight up said it.

Eithen is still fun, but he just wasn't doing it for me this book.
The end scene was great,

loved the scene with Eithen showing the marble and his vision of Ozriel to the gang.

There's only one other thing I can say positively and it's that the fight with Jai Long and Lindon was really fun and gripping, articially drawn out and forced at times, but the action was well written and really stoked the fires of imagination.
It was still artifical af though. What was the point of curing Jai Long's sister in the previous book if he's still gotta fight him anyway, and why'd he take off his arm. And then the character fucks off forever.

This whole book was bullshit and frustrating and grating. It gets a 3 star from me because most of the action scenes were great and well written, and Eithen was still funny and I still love the main characters and I still love the world.
But that's me being generous.
Please dear fuck say the next book is better and returns to form!

Tldr; AHHHHHHHHHH!

So, yeah, this book was amazing.
Yup. Amazing.

First of all the magic explanations are SO MUCH BETTER than the first two books, SOOOOOO much better! God this magic system is amazing, it's up there with Mistborn's Allomancy and Lightbringer's Chromaturgy.
While it's not as rule-centric as those two magic systems (forget about the last 2 books of Lightbringer, 🖕 you Brent Weeks), it's still followable and engaging.

Secondly, Yerin! Yessss! She stood out so much more in this book! We really got to know her more and get a glimpse into who she is and what she feels, I very much enjoy her character and I believe she'll deepen as the series progresses.
Eithen is still my favourite character, he's so bloody funny and I have to be careful drinking anything whilst reading with him around, the guy solidifies my belief this series would make an amazing Anime.
Lindon, damn his character gets better with each book! I LOVE his growth! I he's still somewhat one-dimensional, but I actually think that works quite well for his character as he's literally just someone who won't give up.

The revelations that are revealed in this book, the plot twists, the deeper understanding of the magic systems and all the hierarchies, the world is building as the books go and it's amazing.
I'm having so much, and I hope the series keeps this up and doesn't drop 🤞

However, the interludes (I assume that's what they are) featuring Suriel are confusing, boring, and are like these annoying pitstops. The series is pretty fast-paced, they're hard to put down, so when you have the flow down and it's got you hooked as much as this, stopping that flow to throw in a 7 - 15min chapter that explains nothing of this sci-fi otherworld above Cradle is absolutely annoying. There's no other way to describe it.
Sanderson's Stormlight Archive does this, but Sanderson does it in a way that doesn't bore you, and in fact, he does mystery so well that it still keeps you hooked despite pulling you out of the flow. Will Wight has not done this yet.
I understand he is trying to build the larger world bit by bit through these chapters, but that can be affective, if done right.

Wow this was much better than the first book, some of the issues still remain, such as the difficult way of explaining the magic system (however, Wight did a much better job this time and I'm starting to understand it better).

As for the characters, Lindon was so much better in this book and I suspect this will happen with each book as his journey goes on. Yerin is an interesting character who is clearly the potential love interest for Lindon, I'm looking forward and hoping to seeing her stand out more and show more of herself off, as right now she's somewhat one-dimensional, like a lot of characters seem to be. Eithen is by far my favourite character, he reminds me of Wit from Stormlight Archive, the cocky, aloof and seemingly all-knowing mysterious figure who helps Lindon in his path.

Looking forward to the next book! 

So I struggled with this book at times, the pacing was a bit weird, it started off at rapid speed, zooming past some awesome setup potential and immediately showing us Lindon's test

(The world wasn't established enough yet to make us understand the significance of his test result, it would have been better if we reacted to his result the same as the others, which would have helped immerse us in the world).

Then it started losing me as the book progressed up until the 40% - 50% mark, before that point it was hard to follow because I was being thrown into a world without much explanation that was filled with so many unusual social norms and customs and words.

As soon as it hits 50%, holy shit it hits! That's where the potential of Cradle is seen! It was absolutely awesome! The action, the twists, the writing, the reveals! I was completely hooked after that point and the book stayed on a pretty good fast-pace speed without giving us whiplash.

I'm loving the world-building so far, not what I was expecting at all!
The magic system reminds me of a mix between Allomancy from the Mistborn books (without the hard magic system rules though, that hasn't been explained yet, so at the moment I'm not sure if the magic is soft or hard, I presume hard, but not much has been explained) as people have specialities of magic they are born with and they can injest things to access the power or upgrade themselves, it also felt like it was mixed with One-Piece and the devil fruit, and it also shared elements of the magic system from the Lightbringer books. It was interesting, I'm looking forward to seeing how Will Wight will balance the magic system out with Lindon's progression.
I will say however, the author did not do a good job of conveying how his magic system works, and did a confusing job of describing it. It was difficult to picture and imagine what Wight was trying to convey about how the magic looked like or felt like. 

This book, which I imagined resembling Avatar the Last Airbender, ended up being that, but also somehow Sci-Fi?
It's got me excited for the next book, and Lindon's journey! 🥳

A Review for The Way of Kings Part 2 Leatherbound Edition:

Absolutely breathtaking art 😍🥹