So, "Don't judge a book by it's cover" ... in this case, it was fair for me to. When I was looking to randomly spend some money on a new book or two, I saw this series, but, instead chose Brent Weeks' later effort [b:The Black Prism|7165300|The Black Prism (Lightbringer, #1)|Brent Weeks|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327921884s/7165300.jpg|7534979]. Why? Because the covers of this series screamed "Teenage boys' dream" to me ... And, that's how it read to me, too. Granted, I did enjoy it, but it lacked a certain something that I was after.

This is a first novel from an accomplished writer.

It started strong - we met our main character, Azoth (later Kylar), and his friends and saw their dismal life. We rooted for Azoth to get out of there, and to get his friends out, too. Great start. I care.
I think the trouble started when Mr Weeks started to get all the twists and turns in there. Twists and turns are great - keep the reader guessing. Only, don't keep the reader guessing so much that they no longer know who to care for because they might actually turn out to be a bad guy ...

I think other reviewers have mentioned this lull. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what it is, but I think it was a growing confusion, or, maybe a stepping-back because I was too busy concetrating on all the dropping hints to stay with the characters. Whatever it was, it was there.

My other gripe would have to be the love story. It was such a huge part of the story, but we never got to know the love interest, Elene, not really, and so, I didn't really care. We knew Kylar found her attractive and "pure", but we didn't know her. If he had had his head turned by another girl, I would have accepted it ... just sayin'. It meant that when things finally went their way, I was turning from the page, finger pointed down throat, going "urgh!" On a brighter note - now I know that boys do like to read romance just as much as girls.

However, having read Brent Weeks' later novel [b:The Black Prism|7165300|The Black Prism (Lightbringer, #1)|Brent Weeks|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327921884s/7165300.jpg|7534979], I know he has improved as a writer/storyteller. With that in mind, I expect this series to improve as it goes on. So, I will be reading the rest. Question is, do I wait for my order to turn up, or do I need to go get the next book out of the library?