A decent magic idea that more than falls flat – It leaves a crater.

The magic system is very “Sanderson” and could have been cool but it falls completely flat. The writing is mostly to blame. The prose is very generic, the dialogue is often cringeworthy, the characters are not convincing; and to top it all off, the narrator sucks. Sometimes the author will write a bit of prose that is actually pretty good. The Narrator, presumably realizing this, decides he needs to draw attention to it and do it justice, so he overdoes it, making what could have been or should have been a good line into a corny, overly dramatic delivery that spoils anything redeeming about it. Often it’s hard to tell if the writing sucks or if it’s all the narrator, usually that means it’s a group effort.