The Emperor's Blades

My second DNF in a row, about halfway in. I'm not happy about it, but I refuse to waste more time on a book I dislike so much.

The Emperor is killed, though he had three children, two sons (Kaden and Valyn) and a daughter (Adare). The two boys are sent away to study, one with monks, the other with warriors. The daughter is home as a minister.
And they're all bloody boooooring. Lets just start with Adare. She is young, but she becomes someone very important because her dad hands her a position. Of course she is pissed, because every fantasy princess needs to be an entitled shithead. Why didn't she get an even better position? Because she is a woman! That's also the reason why people are sceptical about her, not because she is young and got here because her influential daddy made it so.
Kaden is with the monks of boring. They are trying to achieve the state of emptiness. Because that sounds great. Of course his dad told him nothing about the purpose of it and the monks also tell him nothing at all, so some wonderfully exciting rock carrying and pottery happens. For them reasons, ya'll.
Valyn gets fucked over a lot, someone is constantly trying to murder him. His best friend/crush is another spectacular “I am a victim because I am a woman” with huge emotional breakdowns who acts like a bitch when he is being nice. She is also incredibly sexist. (A murder happens and she automatically says it was a man, because women can't be cruel. Oooookay, gurl.) Oh, this warrior camp is also full of teenagers who are not even proper warriors yet, but just happen to be the best blower-upper, the best sniper, the best gigantic-bird-pilot. Good to know everyone peaks at 16.

The whole thing is just so slow and feels like I'm watching paint dry. We know these three will eventually meet, but fucking when??? While we're wasting time on Valyn being helpless at his girl's latest titfit or following Kaden as he does senseless, repetitive shit while some monk asks him questions he is expected to just figure out.... we're not getting closer to meaningful things.
But we do get some fantasy swearing. Now some people hate it. I generally don't mind, though this... just really crossed the line. The most common thing is “Kent-kissing”, which according to my Kindle is used 77 times. How is that okay? And this is just one of them.
But hey, the info dump is something crazy as well. We hear a lot of names, foreign words, gods, all kinds of things that supposedly serve a bit cultural purpose, but it's never really properly introduced, just thrown around to feel like you're reading an actual fantasy novel. Some authors do this well. They create intricate worlds with many different elements, but there is some art in serving it all up in a way that's palatable for the reader who doesn't have a whole notebook of notes and graphs. We don't know shit about these things. The way new information is thrown in as a “plot twist” where it's just some convenient shit that feels like it was made up on the spot... not very graceful, no.

But back to the female characters for a second. Everyone gushes about strong female characters, how they are a must and how we need to create this big bullshit ideological framework around them. You know what? I think people who blabber about it and what to prove something are usually ending up with shitty female characters, like here.
Women are not morally superior. With pretending that we are it's like every active good choice made by a woman is eradicated. To be a decent human to me is just as much of an effort as it is for a man. I'm not born as an angel without a malicious bone in my body. We also have to learn, to work on ourselves. These ridiculous women are not flattering to me, more like annoying and wasted.

I have a week off now and I am not going to waste it on this. No. I'm uninterested, downright bored, I can't stand the characters. I will definitely not read the next book. It was so disappointing to read the hype about this, then see for myself and just not have a good time at all. It could have been something so much better, but it fell short in every single way I could come up with.

Good night and let me fall on my own blade!