The narration: it’s good, but not exceptional.
The story: it’s not great. I quit the book at around the 60% mark, I couldn’t take it anymore. The book was filled with tropes, uninteresting and one dimensional characters, and a story that advanced in very odd pace. The writing felt too young for me. I guess it’s much more YA than I had initially thought.
The premise is good, but the writing just doesn’t work at all. Not the style and not characters. Everything falls very flat and feels cliche.
Heavy spoilers: what really took me out was the ending of a major battle about halfway through the book when the pov character that we have deeply invested in just… gets killed? It made no sense to me within the story.
Overall I could see how this is appealing to younger readers or readers who are not experienced with the genre and its tropes. I would say it felt somewhat similar to the early Eragon books in writing but even less steady. With Eragon I love the story so I don’t mind it as much but here the story didn’t work for me.