[Please insert here a scream of EVERY emotion!]

I don’t know if I can wait another 2+ years for the next books because [*gaaagh!*] I called it, but not in the way I wanted!

Okay, first of all, this is BOOK FIVE of Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive. If you haven’t read the first four, you will be thoroughly confused. Even if you have read the first four books but you haven’t read Mistborn, Elantris, and Warbreaker, you still might be a little confused.
However, I suggest reading The Sunlit Man after Winds and Truth because minor spoilers occur.

Supposing you’ve read the first 4 Stormlight Archive books and other Cosmere best-sellers…

We start off with TEN DAYS.
Ten days to claim what lands they can and end the war with Odium. It becomes a mad scramble to keep and regain kingdoms as boundaries will become official with the treaty. Adolin goes to help Azir, Jasnah goes to Thaylen City for support, and Szeth and Kaladin need to reclaim the honorblades and Shinovar. Meanwhile, Dalinar and Navani have decided to use their bondsmith powers to explore his visions and the past, unwittingly pulling in other main characters and villains.

The book has ten parts. One for every day. So, there’s a LOT happening in a lot of places with a lot of characters. Hello, Epic Fantasy.

Minor Spoilers and Trigger Warnings

Despite their treaty deadline, there’s still a war going on for ten more days, and they make the most of it. There are a few main character deaths and brutal (but not gory) fights.

While this book includes a LOT of therapy (even meta-therapy), it also includes a couple of sensitive topics.

There is an on-page same-sex kiss with a few sections leading up to their romance.
There are also a few chapters from “god’s” perspective if that makes you uncomfortable.

Final Rating…

I enjoyed the book overall, but for reasons explained in my spoilers section below… I’m a little annoyed. Still, intriguing, enlightening, and leaving me glad there will be five more of these books, I give Wind and Truth ****4.5 stars.****

About the Ending…Spoilers Ahead!

Alright, I did not want this to be a spoiler, but I CALLED IT! Kind of.

Please refer to my predictions section in my review for Rhythm of War. I hadn’t changed it since reading Wind and Truth.
I predicted the last book would have the acronym of KoW…which it would have with “Knights of Wind and Truth” (the title of the book this one is based on), but whatever. Mess up the perfect palindrome.
I also predicted either Dalinar winning in the end for a happily ever after
OR
Odium would win and everyone would scramble to make it right, probably by involving shards from other planets.

But the problem is, I predicted that mess to happen at the end of Part 1! Not the end of the book!

With the expectation of this book rounding off the “first set of five,” I’d expected a more solid conclusion. I’d expected a large time and technology jump before Stormlight #6, that Wind and Truth was meant to conclude the first arc of the Stormlight Archive…
However, the ending of Wind and Truth doesn’t feel like a conclusion for me. It feels like the ending of The Way of Kings as some big things are concluded, but there are also several “Oh no, now what?” problems left open.

Because–what the heck, they find Odium’s well, but they’re not trying to destroy it? And the Stormfather’s been replaced by Syl and Kaladin’s basically a demi-god? Oh, not to mention whatever Shallan might be because she’s the daughter of a demi-god–I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!
It almost felt like a series finale where writers frequently mess up their main characters’ lives to the point that we almost don’t care to know about their “happily ever afters,” but then we have so many problems hanging out in the open!

I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Don’t mind me. I’m just suffering from story trauma. Welcome to the Stormlight Archive.