OK, well I thought the first half of this book was great...interesting characters, friendships forming, some action and plot going on, solid world building, you name it. Then, it slowly began turning into a different story, one filled with melodrama, dialogue that was waaaaayyy too long (started skimming when I saw it was long paragraphs of the same talk over and over), and lots and lots of tears - from so many men! Corin's crying is kinda explainable, but it all got to be a bit...much. I think this could have been a tighter story with some editing, so it wasn't so...wordy? I'm going to give the second one a try though, and see how the series goes!