First off, thanks Jacob for the ARC! I really appreciate it. Work got in the way though, so I'm only now reading the book.

Some thoughts:

1) The characters seem familiar. Shallan seems to be a bit like Vin when she was acting as a noble, Kaladin seems like Kelsier in the Atium mines, etc. Or rather, since BS wrote this first, the other characters have these similarities. It isn't off putting in the least, since the actual characters and stories are different enough.

2) There are a ton of mistakes in the ARC. I hope they correct them for the final book.

3) The world is very well realized. I happened to just read the interlude part where a merchant's apprentice talks about the place Szeth comes from, about how absurd it was that the grass did not hide, and I found myself nodding along. Then I realized this was essentially a description of my lawn. Sanderson really seems to make a strange world seem "right".

4) I wish there were fewer flashbacks into Kaladin's past. They break the flow of the story, and aren't sufficiently crucial, character building wise, for me to appreciate them.

5) I like Sanderson's handling of atheism. Its way more nuanced and reasoned than how so many religious people handle it.

6) I hope he's going somewhere good with the Parshendi. I have a feeling they aren't a new race at all, only a forgotten one.