As others have said, the second book is by far the highlight of the series, although I did like the first, in part because of the cultural differences. I hated

As others have said, the second book is by far the highlight of the series, although I did like the first, in part because of the cultural differences. I hated the third though, if anyone is struggling with the characters decision making process in the first then they will be completely lost on the third. The whole thing felt like it was trying to cover way too many directions for one book, especially in the last part, even without that I think it was a poor book. I think the cultural differences wouldn't have been as apparent if they had anglicized names though, I had a hard time tracking the characters, was assigning some of the thoughts to the wrong people and things like that. I struggle with games set in Asia like Shogun Total War for the same reason.