People have been telling me since book six that Jordan's pace screeches to a near-halt after that point. It's true, the series does move slowly, but I didn't mind. Listening on audiobook, I'm free to let my mind wander when things drag on, and I was enjoying all the world building and the subtleties of the character arcs. 
 This book, however, is everything I'd been warned about. Much of the events overlap with what we read in Winter's Heart, just from the perspective of different characters, and nothing is resolved. Perrin is still chasing after Faile, Mat is still escaping from the Seanchan, Elayne is still gathering support for her succession to the throne of Andor, and Egwene is still preparing to assault the tower. In all cases except the last, almost nothing in the character's position changes between the first and final page (and in Egwene's case, the change comes in the last few sentences of the last chapter). 
 This feels like a place holder book. We don't even get a climax, which seems rather odd for Jordan. 
 This is by far the worst book in the series so far, even though it avoided many of details that have been grating me. It's just poorly written, as though Jordan just forgot to plan it out before sitting down to write, and simply put his pen down after he reached a certain number of pages. It's small comfort, but it seems that this book has the worst rating - meaning that things should hopefully pick up a bit in the next.