I avoided reading anyone else's review while reading the book and before writing this so I'd be unbiased. So some of my comments or questions below may already have been resolved by the group. I'll go find out in a minute.

This book delivered for me. My biggest worry was that Sanderson would drop the ball and ruin the story. When I heard he was going to write the final book, I read his Mistborn trilogy. It wasn't terrible compared to some things out there, but it seemed amateurish compared to Jordan. I didn't think he could do it, so I was pleasantly surprised with tGS.

His voice was visible here and there. I feel like he turned Mat into a bit of a cartoon, for example. In many ways I enjoyed this because Mat has always been my favorite and I get the most laughs from him. I liked that Sanderson had fun with him. I had a good many laughs over the things he said and thought about women and Aes Sedai. You could tell Sanderson was a fan of Mat's and was enjoying squeezing all the funny out of him for us. I feel like he took it a bit too far, and in that way kind of violated the character. But overall I didn't mind too much. I mean we knew some things would necessarily be different. It could have been drastically worse in my opinion.

Cadsuane was Cadsuanishly Cadsuane for the most part, but I felt her thoughts when Rand banished her were a little too flighty to be her. She recovered though. I liked when Tam told her off. Good ol' Tam.

Gawyn had already gone sour in a previous book by siding with Elaida, but you could kind of appreciate that in an ethical dilemma sort of way. In this book he just became a little biotch. He seems to have reverted to arrogant teenager whereas before he had seemed to accumulate some gravitas. It seemed inconsistent with the way the other young characters had developed and matured. I thought he was going to become somebody we'd root for but now I'm hoping he takes an arrow. Egwene can do better.

I noticed way too many words italicized for emphasis when describing people's thoughts, e.g., "She would find a way to topple Elaida..." or whatever. It was a minor distraction all throughout the book. On most pages you could find that done once or twice. I believe Jordan did that too but much more rarely. Same thing with exclamation points. Too many of those for emphasis. When Siuan or somebody is having what seem like constantly exasperated thoughts, it can detract a bit.

Early in the book I detected a difference from Jordan's writing style, wherein Sanderson seemed to do less showing and more telling. Some of his descriptions of what people were thinking came off as clinical passages instead of really making you feel what the person was going through. I think one I remember was when Aviendha was out scouting a refugee caravan with Rhuarc early on. I must have gotten used to it though, or else it got better, because I didn't notice it after a while.

I thought some loose ends were tied up far too neatly. All that buildup with Aram and Masema and that's it? Aram just eats it on the initial charge (admittedly in KoD, pre Sanderson)? The Prophet and the rest of his rabble just get clipped in the forest? That seemed like quitting to me, in terms of bringing those two storylines to a close. It was too clearly forced. Should have been something more.

While the stuff with Graendal was kind of interesting, it too seemed like just a quick tie-off. Snip. Done. I suppose she could have escaped and done some trick to release the Compulsion weaves on that Domani fop, but I doubt it. I imagine she's actually gone.

Probably Mesaana will slip in the shower in the next book and fatally bump her head. Demandred will get mono and have to sit out Tarmon Gaidon offstage at a clinic in the Land of Madmen. All I know is there had better be some Forsaken left alive for the Last Battle to do some really cool One Power battle stuff or I'm going to have to fire off a sternly worded letter.

Hey seriously, could Demandred's army that is "assembling for battle" be in the Land of Madmen? Where else would he hide it? Shara? Could be the Black Tower, of course, what with that Taim quote about letting the lord of chaos rule.

Another thing that seemed too forced was how Semirhage Moridin(?) just up and told Rand out of nowhere how to kill Forsaken forever by using balefire instead of just regular old death. I was hoping that one would be learned or revealed somewhat more subtly. Nope - blab blab blab.

I guess stuff does have to get wrapped up here in the final episode. Things have to be resolved at some point. I was just hoping for more of a climax or suspense in some cases, more intertwining with the other parts of the story. Like the Prophet should have shown up at a critical part of the Last Battle, threatening to screw things up with his crazy. Aram should have been a sleeper agent for the Forsaken. Something.

Speaking of tying off loose ends quickly and writing characters differently, Sheriam I actually enjoyed a lot more as written by Sanderson. Obviously we didn't know she was a DF before this, so that's a new facet to her character. But I liked how knowing her thoughts told us more about why some people chose to be DF. She never took it seriously, thinking it was just for career advancement. I liked that it showed that it wasn't just a black and white situation, but more shades of grey. That feels more realistic and therefore makes the story richer. It was an abrupt change and an abrupt end, but I liked it. Jeez, that was a lot of DF Aes Sedai.

Nynaeve I thought he wrote pretty well. She didn't seem that much different to me than in previous books. I'm glad her braid got a break.

Egwene I really enjoyed. Nice climax with her and well done on Silviana. What I want to know is what's the deal with Laras?! Verin confirmed that "Laras is many things..." and both Siuan and Egwene had previously suspected something more was going on there. Mesaana maybe? Nah. It'll be good to find out eventually.

Very cool twist with Verin, I thought. Again, a little abrupt, but still neat. That was a pretty fitting way to resolve all of the previous "Is she or isn't she?" suspicion. She was... and wasn't.

One seeming difference I noticed was that Trollocs weren't described as giant in this one. When Tylee's army got ambushed, unless I'm remembering wrong, the only thing she noticed about them to distinguish them from men was the animal heads. Formerly Trollocs were described as huge unless I misremember. Ogier were also huge and that's why people sometimes mistook Loial for a Trolloc in previous books. No mention of it this time though.

Bela! Welcome back, girl. We missed you and we're glad you're okay. I hope you do something awesome in the Last Battle. Who gets you, Siuan or Nynaeve?

I like the direction Rand went in. Whether that had much to do with Sanderson I don't know, but he/Jordan did a good job of illustrating Rand's inner tumult and describing his outer crazy.

I made an audible grunt of weary disgust when Rand had his Magic Of Love epiphany on top of Dragonmount. Grooooan. Ugh. Boooo. Yuck. Awful. Hey at least we finally got to see him barf not long before that. So that's nice and kind of balances things out. Barfin' on a bridge in Ebou Dar. Sounds like he had been out partying.

I really enjoyed the battle at the White Tower. Egwene kicked butt and the Seanchan were great bad guys. I'm guessing we've got five more of those suicide leave-behind guys in black to cause trouble in the next book or two. The collaring and carrying away of Aes Sedai was written in an admirably scary way. You could just feel the horror of these former world rulers as they instantly became pets and property, hauled away and unlikely to be seen again. And it was pretty ballsy of them to attack that way, so that was neat.

All in all I think this was a very enjoyable entry in the series. There remain some storyline constipations such as the Borderlander armies and whatever's happening in Seandar and whatever's happening with Taim and the Black Tower, but everybody is finally starting to point towards Shayol Ghul. FIIIIIGHT!