It all began when KoD came out. I think excalibur and I were separated by an ocean once more. Somehow or other (my memory is a bit vague) he got the hardback first and read it. Without me. I found out when I joined him in England. I could have killed him. We were going to read it at the same time, I thought, and he'd read it. I can't describe how furious I was at the time.
Anyway, I'm not sure what happened after that. Life got in the way. Wotmania ended. Robert Jordan died. It was his last book and I didn't want to read it. I finally did a couple of years ago. Maybe more; I can't remember. Then I moved on to the first Sanderson one. For some reason, it simply didn't hold my interest.
Aviendha had a long POV in there that I felt portrayed her as weak and worrisome, and pretty damned annoying.
Now even more time has passed since I tried to finish the series, and I can't remember all the subplots. I don't know whether I can, should, or even want to try again from the beginning.
But just in case I do, don't spoil it for me 
Well, there you have it. I'm sure you don't care, and I don't know why I'm telling you. Nevertheless, it's kind of good to be back.
Because... They aren't. Not really. Just a somewhat flexible outline of what happened.
And besides, the books are over now. "Canon" matters rather little. For me the setting lives on in my imagination and will likely do so for the rest of my life.
... Besides, while some of BS's characterizations were off, there are some character arcs/resolutions that you'd be doing your inner WoT-fan grave harm to miss. To say nothing of just some metaphysics of the setting involving the Dark One.
*NM*