Awaken Online Side Quest: Apathy

I'm reading the Awaken Online novels in order, and so far, Apathy has been the one I've liked the least. Compared to the previous ones I've found this one quite slow and boring, and it's also taken me a lot more to finish it because I just didn't find the excitement to read as much and as continuously as with the previous entries in this saga. I found Eliza to be a very slow, dull and yes, boring character. The Hippie is just as insufferable as Eliza is boring, and although I can empathize with how Eliza feels towards the Hippie, because every time he appears it's just like “do we really need to do this now?”.
Apart from that I do also find Elizas backstory, and real life character just boring.
It's nice to have these Sidequest novels to get to know the characters better and understand where they come from, but if I had known how this novel was going to unfold, I'd probably have skipped it.
But now it's back to Dominion, which I hope gives me a shot of excitement!