Upon this reread, I still find this book excellent! I am bumping it down to a 4.5 because it remains very slow  for like the first 400 pages. I was overwhelmed with the amazing-ness of the reveals at the end the first time that I forgave the slog of earlier in the book and, although it was more enjoyable the second time through after knowing what was going on, it was still too slow. First time readers: be advised that it could be hard to read a lot of the book, but if you loved book 1, finishing this book is so worth it because the pay off is even better than that of book 1.