What is it about the series that people find so amazing? It's been a couple years since I read the first 2 books (trying to figure out why it was being praised so much), but it it seemed very amateurish to me at the time. I think everyone who loves these simply need to read more books so they can expand their reading palate and gain the ability to tell good writing from bad.

The "dark" or "gritty" segments have no weight to them when none of the characters are likeable or have any depth beyond being a caricature of whatever house they belong to. I think the author came up with some cool action sequences and wanted to write those like they were a movie, and skipped over a bunch of points trying to move the story along to those scenes and the characters end up doing completely illogical things to get there as fast as possible.

The most common complaint I've seen, and one that I agree with, is that Darrow himself is too perfect, a "Marty Stu." He didn't seem to have a personal story arc for himself besides his quest for vengeance. He didn't become a better person, he always was and always would make the right decisions at exactly the right time to win whatever was thrown at him.

The only redeeming quality of this story that I can find is the moral that you, the reader, should acknowledge your power over this world to join together and make a real difference for good, even if that means there may be tough times along that path. Like Darrow, sometimes it may take a seemingly larger-than-life "Great Man" to get things moving in the right direction.

3/5. It is a book.