This book definitely ends with a bang, and there's some solid moments sprinkled throughout the book (mostly last 3rd), but pretty much nothing happens for the first half. It was difficult to keep reading and find the story engaging at moments. I'm glad Perrin is back, but he had one POV chapter in the prologue and disappeared until the final 150 pages. It's frustrating to have your favorite character feel sidelined when he's been such a pivotal piece to the story so far.

On a positive note, I think the extremely slow pacing of this book allowed me to connect with some of the characters a little more, which is something I definitely needed. Specifically, Nynaeve and Mat are really becoming favorites. Which is surprising considering I couldn't stand Mat in Eye of The World.

But again, there's a lot of meh in this book. It takes the Aes Sedai half the book just to make one simple decision. It's not a bad book, but it's not great.