The Great Hunt

The second book in The Wheel of Time series. I decided to continue on after finding the first book kind of lackluster because I watched the show and heard it was kind of pulling from books 2 and 3 as well as the first. Although I personally find the show to be lackluster as well unfortunately... 
This may be a semi-hot take again, but I am finding this author's writing to be so incredibly dull. You have to read hundreds of pages in between the action, and the action isn't really good anyway. The amount of just traveling in these books is insane (and at least in The Eye of the World it was tensed with them being chased...). I once again did the audio for this one (which is still weird with the split male and female perspectives, but I at least am used to it now) and at the end of this one there was also an interview just like the first one. The author kind of says stuff against the genre (and TOLKIEN) in terms of wanting to be different, and yet he still manages in 1400 pages to write nothing really different at all? I mean that's not to say there isn't some good stuff, but avoiding others tropes does not mean you're not just falling into other ones... 
I think the Great Hunt falls short in terms of characterization. For me, I didn't love the first, but I wanted to know more and see more. In the sequel, I don't think there's any character development. Yet again Matt and Perrin are hardly in use, and Rand says the same 4 sentences the entire time. Egwene becomes increasingly annoying, and Lan and Morgaine are pretty much MIA? 
The climax picked up in the slightest bit, and I did find myself invested. Weirdly enough, two back-to-back not great reads and I still find myself interested in continuing? Is this self punishment, or is there something more to gain here?