Finished!!! Wow, this one took me a while compared to the first two books. I felt like the first two books were faster paced compared to this, but to be fair, I've been more busy irl while reading this than the first two too. I do remember that there were lots of exciting parts in the first two books near the ends of each individual parts that I didn't get as much from here. However, I really like where the story is going. Most notably, I love that Shallan ends up choosing Adolin and there wasn't a whole lot of drama surrounding the love triangle. I love the two of them together, they're so adorable, and I love that Adolin knows her for who she is. I'd been so concerned throughout the book about Shallan's dissociating from her selves, but it looks like it ended well here. Not sure if it's an issue that will crop up again in future books, but it seems like she's got Adolin to support her, plus she sort of renewed her "apprentice vows" with Jasnah, not sure where that's going to take us.
I also love that Jasnah became king! Hell yeah! I loved her in the first book, she wasn't very present in the second book, and tbh, I feel like we don't see enough of her badassery in this book either, but I hope that now she's king that we'll see more of her in the next book. I wasn't sure about reading Edgedancer, but I see that there are some interesting things happening there that are alluded to here so I might go back and read it. I'll have to look for a copy because it's not available on audio for me.
There are some things that bother me, as I've mentioned, with the succession line and the fact that Elhokar's family doesn't seem to care about his child, but it doesn't bother me enough to make me stop enjoying the books. I can probably happily pretend that it doesn't matter to me too .
Of course, it does make me wonder if we'll see the child all grown up in the future and what that will mean for the kingdom. There are also a lot of other finer details that I'm sure I missed, but I also planned for these books to be rereads in the future and I know I'll get more out of them every time I read them. There's so much detail and the illustrations are gorgeous too, btw! I'm already anticipating rereads when I haven't even finish the series!
Loved it! Can't wait to start the next book!
