Felt like a first book.

My overall 3 might seem strange given the individual ratings. The story itself wasn’t bad. Far fetched situations abounded, perhaps too many. Whilst the individual elements work, for me it was the way these intertwined that was difficult to accept. However my main criticism was the detail. It felt like so much research had been done and it had all been squeezed in to the detriment of the storytelling. It dragged the pace down and at times was so repetitive that it became jarring. A series doesn’t need the same line about why a character has a nickname over and over in the same volume let alone in each book. As a reader some details and explanations are valuable but the over-explanation detracted from the character building.
Overall, yes I finished it so definitely not the worst book I’ve tried by a long way but a more critical editor could have sharpened it into something far more than I found it to be.