Books rarely make me cry, but this one did. Not at pages 59-60 or so, but at the end. I'm still not sure if they were happy tears or sad tears. 
 While it's not a direction I would have gone with the conclusion to this series, it was a very good read. Of course, I'm not an author, so I wouldn't have gone anywhere with it. 
 While I do think this book could be read on it's own, I certainly recommend reading the whole series.