The author does a fantastic job of creating deep characters and the dialog is well-crafted, so often a weakness of this genre.
But I started to get bored about 3/4 of the way though. My expectation with this sort of story is that the MC is on a hero’s journey, yet ours seems uninterested in personal growth. He starts off as an above-average swordsman with an in-born trait that gives him a slight advantage over those more highly skilled, but he seems uninterested in mastering this gift, nor in improving his basic skills. He also has a temper problem that he seems uninterested in mastering, no matter how often he’s warned about it. What he does seem interested in is getting mired down in teenage romantic issues. In all, I don’t find our protagonist very admirable.