The Dragon Reborn

Executive Summary: This one didn't quite live up to my memory, or maybe it's just that my criteria for giving out 5 stars has become more stringent. There were a few slow parts earlier on, but the latter half of the book just flew by. 4.5 stars.Audiobook: Another excellent job by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading. One of my main reasons for doing this reread is to experience the audio book version, and it has yet to disappoint.Full ReviewOn my first read, this was one of my favorites in the series, certainly top 5. It still remains there after my reread. It just wasn't quite up to my current standards for 5 star reads, so unlike [b:The Eye of the World 228665 The Eye of the World (Wheel of Time, #1) Robert Jordan https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1337818095s/228665.jpg 2008238], I couldn't justify keeping it at 5 stars.For a book named The Dragon Reborn, there is very little of the Dragon himself. Instead it focuses on several of the characters that were more secondary in the first two books. Apart from Perrin, the others didn't get nearly so much page time as they do in this book.My personal favorite, at least on this reread is Mat. I still found him kind of annoying and whiny at the start of the series, but in this book he finally starts down the path on his way to my favorite character. There are parts I'm just itching to get to again, but I'm enjoying the journey there a lot sooner than I did on my first read.Perrin was my clear favorite for much of my first read, and I again enjoyed his sections here. However, some of the things that came to annoy me about him later in the series were more noticeable this time around.Nynaeve is already displaying both some of her most obnoxious tendencies (tugging the braid), but I also found she's showing some of the characteristics that made me come to really like her by the end of the series too. I hope that continues with my reread, because I found her one of the worst parts of the middle books the first time through.Overall the pace of this book is still pretty good compared to my recollection of later books, and there is a lot of great character development for the supporting cast, in particular Mat.I'm still going strong for my reread and plan to jump into the 4th book at some point soon.