Shadow's Edge

Executive Summary: I have mixed feelings about this book. It's very uneven. I went from 3 stars to 4 stars, back to 3.

Audio book: Paul Boehmer again does a good job reading. A few accents, but nothing special. My only real gripe is when the POV suddenly shifts. I'm not sure if it's the way Mr. Weeks wrote the book, the way Mr. Boehmer is reading the book, or the way the audio was cut, but there needs to be some kind of pause between POV shifts in the same chapter, because it is VERY jarring when it happens.

Full Review
So I'm apparently in the minority of my goodreads friends who all seemed to like this book a lot more than I did.

It started slow, and I mostly got over it. I was all ready to give it a 4 stars for recovering nicely and BAM! The ending happened. Terrible. I kind of understand why he did it that way, because I was wondering what was going to be the driving force for the final book, but still.

If you've read the book you can read me rant about what I didn't like in these spoiler tags:

First he teases us with the Empire Strikes Back ending "KYLAR I AM YOUR FATHER" which annoyed me, but then it was "just kidding". Only he may as well not have been. Kylar loses his arm just like Luke and it's Vi, not Kylar whose the God King's offspring. Close enough. And dumb. Also unnecessary if you ask me. He simply could have been too powerful for the compulsion to have been completely broken on her without needed to add the rule that "compulsion only works on family". I would have believed that.I get that Kylar needed to die, and make his deal to come back immediately when we get the note from Durzo saying "DON'T MAKE DEALS", but the whole thing just felt badly executed to me.

Now that that's out of the way. Overall this book is very uneven. I really hate the “Badass whose giving up on fighting” trope. And this one just felt like it went on too long. We all know he can't stay hidden and never kill again, so can't you just get on with it?

Even when he does finally get on with it, the book tends to meander too much. I'd find myself listening to sections and just wanting to get back to the main story.

This sounds like a mostly negative review, but there are things to like. I enjoy his characters. I think Vi makes for a mostly interesting addition as a POV character. She is part of the meandering in places I was referring too though.

Logan's development is probably the most interesting, and at times the most disturbing. His time in “Hell's Asshole” still makes me cringe.

This book seems heavily influenced by the Wheel of Time. First we have the Aes Sedai wandering around and we meet the Brown who is more focused on her scholarship than anything else.

Then the Children of Light show up (I can't remember their actual name, or find it on the damn wiki), with their roving army of Mage Haters. They even have a similar emblem.

Overall this is an OK book that very enjoyable in parts and not so much in others. It's a bit of letdown after the first book though.