The third book does not fit with the first two.  I feel as if Robin Hobb did not even come up with the plot of the third book!  The ending of an entire trilogy was cheaply compressed into a few chapters, and the biggest questions that have been lingering for all three books were compressed into a brief weather forecast: "over the next summer this happened."

On top of everything, the characters were inconsistent with what one would expect of them.  The entire story seemed to revolve around one great goal of the main character... and in one paragraph he uncharacteristically just gives up.  The other characters apparently change their core values at a whim too which makes the storyline awkward.  The entire story felt poorly thought out and quickly thrown together with no attention to detail.

This book was the exact opposite of what I expected and was hoping for both from attention to detail and characterization.

I would have regarded the series better had I never read the third book.
The third book does not fit with the first two. I feel as if Robin Hobb did not even come up with the plot of the third book! The ending of an entire trilogy was cheaply compressed into a few chapters, and the biggest questions that have been lingering for all three books were compressed into a brief weather forecast: "over the next summer this happened. "

On top of everything, the characters were inconsistent with what one would expect of them. The entire story seemed to revolve around one great goal of the main character... and in one paragraph he uncharacteristically just gives up. The other characters apparently change their core values at a whim too which makes the storyline awkward. The entire story felt poorly thought out and quickly thrown together with no attention to detail. This book was the exact opposite of what I expected and was hoping for both from attention to detail and characterization. I would have regarded the series better had I never read the third book.