The Shadow Rising

Executive Summary: This is a pretty good book, but it could have been a really good book if the first 20% of this book wasn't so slow. Nothing happened. For like 8 hours of audio. A sign of things to come. 3.5 stars rounded up for the much stronger 80%.

Audiobook: Another fantastic audio book by Micheal Kramer and Kate Reading. I doubt I could have gotten through the first 20% again if not for doing it in audio.

Full Review
My original review from my first read complained about a slow start. It was vastly understating that. My recollection had been this series didn't get slow until the the middle books. I think most of the first 20% could have been thrown away, or trimmed down to just a few chapters.

Once I got past it though, things picked up dramatically. A lot of this book focuses on Perrin. I found him and Faile super annoying in that first 20%, but much better as the story went on. His arc was really good. Eventually. Sensing a theme? I can remember now why he was my favorite of the series for so long though.

My favorite parts on this reread was Mat. I had been waiting for some of these events to happen, thinking they occurred in books 2 or 3. They were even better to experience on a reread because I know what a lot of the cryptic foreshadowing really means. I think I like Mat a lot earlier on in the series than I did originally. He only gets better as the series progresses too.

I was surprised to find myself enjoying Nynaeve so much in this book. I recall finding her very annoying until quite late in the series. However we get a lot of the stuff that I come to love about her later in this book. It's too bad Mr. Jordan had to make her so irritating for so long.

Egywene's story is pretty interesting too, but the best part are the wise ones. For as bad as Mr. Jordan seems to make the Aes Sedai, the Wise Ones are great. I think the Aiel women in general often save this series from itself in terms of the female characters.

Finally of course there is Rand himself. He's got more of a role in this book than the last one, but he still kind of takes a back seat to some of the other characters. I don't feel like we get a good sense about what he's feeling/planning. We're just as in the dark as everyone else.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, but that first 20% is really a sign of things to come, and why I went from telling everyone and their brother to read this series, to struggling to get through the middle to when things finally get good again.

I still really like this series, but feel like it could have used a better editing sometimes. I'm looking forward to continuing my audio reread, but I'm dreading some of those slow parts to come.