See, for me, a lot of Dart seems to be Carey telling me stuff, info dumping. I, personally, was not engaged by the Phedre character, and thus what character development and story was actually in place did a bit less for me.



See, here you are marginalizing average. Carey is not loved by the majority of readers. She is skilled with the mechanics of writing, but she is not pushing the genre with characters or stories that have been considered 'must read'. For me, average is a bucket of authors who tell good stories and write pretty well... that bucket is filled with authors that I enjoy reading.

I just haven't read a book yet by Carey that I would characterize as special. But, and I must stress this, this is my own personal experience and opinion. That doesn't imply that your own experience or opinion is in someway invalid. People can read the same book and same author, and have very different responses in completely logical and well thought out ways. That's part of what makes reading fun... there isn't an objective 'good/best' even if people try their best to make people believe otherwise.

Again, as I said, the key is that if you like what you're reading, you'll want to continue. If not, don't expect your opinion to be drastically changed after the first book by the following. I felt the third book was the best of the series and reflected Carey's growth as a writer and her ability to better capture Phedre on the page. But, lacking that engagement, I didn't find it all that more compelling than the first novel.