Not much really happens here. Perrin worrying over Faile. More Faile point of view (ugh). A lot of mundane stuff about Elayne running Caemlyn. She can't channel when she's pregnant (with twins). Egwene has aes sedai making cuendillar. They have no idea that the source was cleansed, but see a big 3 mile creator where shadar logoth was. Some stuff with Rand. Mat is with Luca in his circus traveling show. Egwene has been captured maybe? Idk, nothing much seemed to happen here. But I was expecting it.

Even with Jordan's excellent writing chops, this is a slog and a 2-star book.

Earlier in the series the author had focused his writing on rich descriptions of the world paired with putting his characters in close quarters and watching sparks fly. As the series enters its slog he leans ever more heavily into detailed descriptions of character-v-character psychology. By Crossroads of Twilight, this emphasis on the social dynamics has slowed the pace to a crawl, with the reader wading through descriptions of seating arrangements, and having to know who arrived first to an important meeting, and the subtlest of gestures that require a plot reference website to understand not just their significance but indeed who the gestures were intended for. The intense focus in this book on endless small interactions between the countless named characters stalls the story's momentum, and my interest stalls with it.

The circus scenes and the scenes with Egwene and the Sitters encapsulated my frustrations with this book. I wouldn't say I was close to quitting the book entirely ... but these scenes in particular were both a bore and chore.

Cadsuane continues a transition from a background character who was very thoughtless and who relished taking others down a peg. I'll be the first to note that I hated Cadsuane's open rudeness towards every other character (particularly other Aes Sedai!), but I feel like something important has been lost as she becomes more of an advisor to Rand than an agent on her own journey. She becomes a side character of a different sort, but one that is less interesting.

Each of the female leads who gets time in this book (Elayne, Faile, Egwene) are dealing with the same problem: they need to rally allies, cannot trust (to varying degrees) the people around them, and people do not take them seriously (for various reasons). Meanwhile, the male leads who get time in this book are taken very seriously (Rand, Perrin, Mat); their leadership never seriously questioned (even Mat by Tuon). An interesting juxtaposition.

The climax with Egwene's mission turning the harbor chains into cuendillar was a highlight for me. This moment felt like a payoff for the earlier setup and was the one instance where the narrative's slow build felt justified.

Aside from this last moment, Crossroads of Twilight felt less like a heroic journey and more like a test of patience, overshadowed throughout by the slowest pacing yet in a very long series.