I felt the same way about the last one. Because if you only follow the core story it's much shorter, it's the side characters who make up for a lot of volume and frankly while sure they add "meat" to the world they are not exactly needed to tell the story.

Characters of Aliana Tanaka and son of Alex Kamal and their stories made me roll my eyes. I didn't care about them or their stories, telling of the same events from different view points was getting too much as well.