This is a tough one. There's good stuff happening, but in the grand scheme of things, this book feels like 'So we had this big thing happening with Rand and Saidin in the last book, let's catch everyone else up'. Unfortunately, there are pretty literally Zero Climaxes. None. Mat just moves a long his road some, Perrin STILL hunts for Faile, Elayne faffs about with her reach for the crown a bit ... and that's it. There's not even much of a cliffhanger at the end of the book.

So really, it's more of a stopgap for the next book. And that frankly sucks.