Well, hm.

I'm gonna give it four stars cause like the other two books it was fast-paced and super fun and I adore the characters. It has a very satisfying ending, both to the plot of this book and to the overall arc of the trilogy.

But it wasn't quite as good as I expected, especially given how strong the middle book was. There are a lot of meandering subplots and side quests in this book and a lot of second-tier character background stories, and it's a very very long book with all that extra stuff. I ended up skipping a lot of the flashback/asides, because they weren't that germane to the core plot and also because the second-tier characters...just aren't that interesting. I feel sad about that because at least for one of them I did want to know more of her story....but it just didn't feel compelling.

Overall, though, I loved all three books. It's rare for me these days to find books that trigger can't-put-it-down reading mode, and this series did that.