I found the book to be quite scattered compared to the previous ones. The various characters seemed to be engaged in activities that didn’t relate to each other, making it difficult to discern a cohesive plot. It felt like events would start and then abruptly stop without any conclusion. There was a lack of a clear goal that all the characters were working towards, leaving the story feeling aimless and without direction. Additionally, I was bothered by some characters undergoing significant personality changes without sufficient explanation from the previous books.
Personally, I preferred it when the focus was narrowed down to two main protagonists. While I do appreciate learning about other characters in the world, I believe it would have been better to group their stories together as separate narratives to avoid the messiness.
However, despite these shortcomings, the book did have many emotionally impactful moments, which speaks to the author’s skillful writing. It’s just unfortunate that the overall narrative lacks purpose and resolution. It almost feels like half a book, as a complete story should have a well-defined beginning, middle, and end. Perhaps it would have been better to group the character perspectives together, presenting them as a collection of interconnected short stories.
Regarding the narration, it was mostly good, but I did encounter some technical issues around the 20-30% mark. The sound kept cutting out, giving the impression that multiple takes were stitched together, which was quite distracting. Fortunately, this problem resolved itself after a while. There were also instances where the voices of different characters blended together, particularly noticeable during segments involving the blind character, making it momentarily unclear who was speaking.
