In a nutshell, the message of this book is that we are all at our worst at some point, but we shouldn't let the worst of us define us, and we should always strive to do better. Human hubris, compassion, and resilience are all showcased in beautiful, sweeping, sci-fi fashion.

You can tell that this book was written when #BlackLivesMatter was at its most intense momentum. There is a beautiful love letter/apology to conquered and displaced peoples, in this book. Mourning the loss of lives and culture, the loss of home, the generations enslaved and treated as inferior/other, the impotent anguish with no clear way forward, and the splintering of cultural identity where some cling to the past and others identify with their new, assimilated, culture. I feel a great many lost voices in America are represented here in this book, and the grief-stricken and sincere dialogue it opens is masterful.
.
.
.
Buuuuuut, as I've stated before, this book series has PACING ISSUES!!! And in THIS book, Sanderson decided to be CUTE, and mock the audience! "It's the journey that's most important, who cares if the path's unclear." "A story doesn't need a through-line of meaning or conflict. It can be a series of vignettes, glimpses into other people's lives, and that's meaningful enough." "Of course an odyssey has some boring parts, but you shouldn't just skip ahead to the action! The act of slogging through dense or repetitive texts allows to reader to share the protagonist's journey!" Having multiple characters, throughout the book, break the fourth wall essentially, to say how good of Sanderson it was that he write these meandering doorstops, took all the emersion and fun out of the series for me.

I also strongly disagree with anyone who applauds the world-building of these books. I have said from the beginning, that the Cosmere is more alive in Sanderson's head than it is on the page; you need an Appendix to understand anything that's happening! I don't think Sanderson has made his ensemble visceral enough. I cannot tell the soldiers of Bridge 4 apart, or the political delegates from other nations. I cannot tell the races and cultures apart, save for a few. I cannot figure out the relationship between gemhearts, stormspheres, the soul orbs in Shadesmar, the chasm fiends, the thunderclasts, the carapace-covered Parshendi, and the crystallized human agents of Odium. I don't understand why the Mental plane was so alien in previous books, and now is just straight up Fairyland: Fully open and symbiotic with humanity, and even largely homonoidal themselves! I don't understand why traitors (won't name names for spoiler reasons) aren't given their comeuppance. Or why relationship beats go unexplored. And I see way too many instances where Christian iconography is used as a crutch instead of relying on original writing.

I can ALSO also see what Sanderson has spoken of in interviews: That he has a framework for a book in mind, and then writes little vignettes to link from major point to major point. The short snippet scenes method leads to some sloppy transitions, where the protagonists just ARE where they need to be, and in the middle of a battle or discovery, or even RESOLVING a conflict that happened off-page! It's not neat connective tissue, it reads like, "The author didn't know what to put here. So, he didn't!"

I'm over it. I have read 3 books, almost 4,000 pages, and I am done making excuses for this series. It has great messages, and great concepts. But it fails a lot of basic storytelling elements, like how to resolve a conflict, or how to build inter-character relationships, or how to communicate a completely made up world to a naive newcomer! I. Am. Over. It. I'm done. 3 stars for reading an odyssey that mostly made me say..."meh?"