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I was disappointed in the "making of the modern world" aspect of the book. Yes, it was a thorough biography of Genghis Khan for the first half of the book. The second half covered the remainder of the Mongol empire's story nicely, but the implications of how it formed the world we have today were afterthoughts, implied, or omitted. The treatment of the Chinese by the Tibetan Buddhists during the late Mongol occupation is a fantastic example. It sets up the reflexive attitudes that underpin modern China's relationship with Tibet, but that line of thought isn't pursued. There's a thousand other places where implications seem on the edge of being discussed only for us to hop back to the steppe and begin anew with another family member's story.

Ultimately that deficiency is one of expectation from the title, not of the book's actual substance. Even so, it lowered my enjoyment. I spent the whole book in anticipation only to reach the awkward Afterward in disappointment.

DNF.

I was just completely bored with this story right from the start. It's incredible since I was really into the first two in the series and I even pre-ordered this with the expectations of wrapping up a really good series. The choice to take the action into the Nowhere and thus decoupled from the realities of the settings so far erased my connection to those settings. The nonsensical nature of these fragments and the way they shuttled past one after another made me uninterested in developing any connections to what was going on. The new character in that setting was likewise swept up in the wave of irrelevance. I don't think I made it even 25% of the way into the book before I realized I had no idea what was going on because I'd stopped paying attention.

This is the first utter failure of a Sanderson book I've run into since Elantris. I hope it's a one-off.

Lakesedge was a really interesting debut novel from Lyndall Clipstone. As a YA book about "monsters and the women who like to kiss them" this is clearly her wheelhouse. The setting was colorful and characters unique enough to stand out clearly. The magic of her world was vague, but felt like there was a depth there beyond the hand-wavey. All of that was for the good.

My issues with the book are mostly about the main character's motivations. When we meet her, we quickly learn that Violeta will do anything, even give up her own life, to protect her brother. She will sacrifice everything she has to protect him, endure physical and emotional trauma, anything. This is who we're cheering for through the entire book when suddenly it all changes.

This next bit is spoiler-y, so I'm using spoiler tags:

When Violeta decides that saving Rowan is worth surrendering the memories of her family for all eternity it just didn't make any sense. It was so entirely against her character that it threw off the rest of the book for me. Once the Lord Under specified that her brother was included in that, and that she'd never remember him, any chance of a better rating went out the window. Honestly at that point of the book it felt like the author forgot that Violeta had a brother at all as she spun up the romance plot, which, in retrospect, was far weaker of a connection to reality than her familial love. No, were I her editor I'd have told her to kill the romance angle completely and have her sacrifice her safety at Lakesedge to save the world, but leave the brother in peace. That fits her character more and avoids the trope.