I'll give this book two stars, merely for the fact that it's written excellently.

I'll reiterate what others have said - Jorg being 13-14 years old is unbelievable to the point of distraction. Even with the life events that set Jorg on his path, I don't think on its own it is enough to have made him do the evil and unforgivable things he does at his age. We get an explanation...? for what truly might be driving him, and as the reader you think, "ah! ok, I *guess* that has redeemed the past 60% of this book." But then Jorg goes out of his way to *explicitly tell the reader* "no, no - I am 100% evil and those choices were my own. I regret nothing."

My other main critique is that Jorg moves through the plot almost exclusively on luck. I have not read many fantasy books, so forgive me if main characters escaping every dire situation on sheer luck is a mandatory or desired trope in the genre, but goodness - almost every moment where Jorg was about to die or fail in some plan, he is saved by luck or a stroke of genius that is closer to straight-up divine intervention than an expression of intelligence.

I'm glad I pushed through when I wanted to DNF at 10%, because I'm trying to get more exposure to the genre, but wouldn't read again or continue with the rest of the series.