This was absolutely magnificent and has to be one of my favourite reads of the year so far. I wasn't 100% sure what to expect going into this because I thought I'd heard some good and some meh things, but I can confirm that this is all the good things.
I'm in two minds about how I feel about this book. On the one hand, I'm impressed by the scale of the story and by some of the best character development I've ever read. On the other hand, knowing the history and serious allegations against the author has seriously tainted my reading experience. That, and the fact that by the fourth book (as this is a bind up of books 1-4), I found things edged toward tedious.
Upside-Down Books 