The Throne of Ice and Ash

I can respect that the story here is well written, but I really struggled to engage with either of the two main characters and this really limited my enjoyment of the book. This was one of the better Norse inspired fantasies from a pure world building concept. The mythology was well developed, the societal hierarchy was interestingly set up but made a degree of sense. As someone who has some knowledge of Nordic languages the strange mix of pure English (Oakharrow) and Nordic names jarred somewhat, but I recognise that is a niche complaint. Etymology is important though!

My biggest complaint was with how blindly and irrationally stupid the two MCs are. They both had a tendency to rush blindly without thinking into an action, when even a second of thought would make it clear that better options were available. They both have severe trust issues, without really any explanation of why. Most of the problems here would have been solved if they were able to delegate properly (or even at all - neither seemed willing to let anyone else do a task). As they both came from a ruling family it seems unbelievable that they do not have any understanding of this type of thing, and that kind of threw me from the whole story

Engagement with the main characters is so important to me in reading a book, and this is definitely something that can be personal taste. The prose and the story here is well done, but I just struggle to like the characters as they do such unbelievable things