I picked up this book, read two chapters, put it back down and was ready to DNF. Then, a friend of mine made me promise I would read the first three books in this series because the third book is amazing. So, that's how I went into reading this book and frankly, it didn't improve much from that point.

I have a lot of irks with this book around the names for things which was hard to get past but I did my best to ignore it. If you didn't listen to the audiobook at all, this might be easier to just pronounce things your own way, but if you do listen to the audiobook then even when you switch to reading those names will be stuck in your head (Nehemia.....).

Celaena is a grating and frustrating main character, her love interests in this book are pretty bland, and the story drags on much longer than it needs to. Not to mention, the idea of competing in a contest to become the King's champion is... a little overdone to be the basis of a whole novel. 

Anyways, I will trudge on in the series, because I said I would and I've heard it improves, but I'm not sold as of now.