Sanderson's writing bothers me much less than some of the posters here, especially the more expert posters like DomA. But the Graendal info dump was so uncharacteristic and forced that it bothered more than any single aspect of Brandon's writing so far.

Yeah I thought Mat was a little off last book, and clearly the general style of writing was different throughout the book, yet none of it bothered me much. But the Graendal scene was something RJ simply never would have done. He might have a Loial or an Agelmar randomly spill large chunks of background in dialogue, but the characters thoughts (especially the forsaken) are generally not very revealing.

Here Graendal seems to just spell it all in her thoughts for us. I wonder if Brandon felt obligated to explain her whole line of reasoning so that her miraculous escape seemed plausible so that fans wouldn't berate him for having Graendal survive what should not have been survivable.

That said, I am still excited for ToM and grateful for Brandon's admirable efforts. I think he has done as well as could be done.