with such a cool opening, this volume should've made me bump up my rating of the trilogy to at least three stars, but here we are. the first three chapters are definitely my kind of messy and what i expect of a story about a man who lives with dozens of hallucinations as if they were real people (later on, the trick is repeated, but it doesn't land like the first time). we finally focus on the nature of these entities or 'aspects' summoned by the protagonist with their own personalities and backgrounds to compartmentalize his vast knowledge and array of specialized skills, which he does so quite literally through speed-reading. despite the absurdity of this method, the aspects and everything they imply —the questioning of the concepts of insanity and reality, the crazy relationship we established with ourselves to maintain a sense of order within our personal lives, and how uncomfortable must be to have the weirdness of our brains out in the open for everyone to judge instead of neatly hidden inside our skulls— are what kept me intrigued during a rather disappointing reading. naturally, many questions piled up, yet only a few are answered here and plotlines introduced in the previous novellas are left hanging. the resolution of the mystery of the mc's disappeared love interest that runs throughout the three volumes is unsatisfying and their romance, as corny as the ending. like with Mistborn, i picked this up for the premise only to see creativity eventually being replaced by mawkish writing and characters, with little to no payoff. so two stars still.