Hobb sure enjoys suffering. I'm not even certain how to rate this. I think it ended well, if not necessarily happily. 
 I struggled with the first half of this, which mostly focused on Fitz's journey to becoming more human and himself again. If you love Fitz and don't need tons of action this may not be as hard to push through as it was for me. 
 The second half we finally get some of my favorite characters (Kettricken and the Fool). There are some hints and more things revealed about the Fools nature and good development for he and Fitz. The second half is more or less a long journey as well, but at least here we had my two favs along for the ride as well as a couple other characters that I thought were interesting and served a purpose to the wider story as well. It is still not high on action. Not everyone needs it, but I do tend to be one of those readers who loves to have explosions going off in a story with some frequency. What was revealed in various ways was the nature of things, whether that being skilling, the wit, history of the world, individual character history, plant lore. I felt like I had a deeper understanding of things that already were, even if not a lot had progressed. 
 Kettricken's talk of Sacrifice really turns out to be what this trilogy was very much about. It's all any of them do. I think this would be less depressing if the story had a good balance of humor. Not much good happens to anyone in The Lies of Locke Lamora but it still managed to feel fun and exhilarating on account of how damn funny it is from start to finish, while undeniably being tragic. 
 I liked how everything came together by the last chapter. Mysteries such as the origin of Forging, motives for the Redship Raiders, and what the Elderlings are, get explained. But you have to wait until the very end for two of those. 
 I'm excited to read the Liveship Traders series to see some different parts of this world. Though I suppose I should prepare myself for sadness, it seems to be her M.O.