Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I was excited to read this series, based on previous reviews and on Amazon's recommending it to me. However, I found nothing redeeming about it. The writing was awkward (does the author even know what a sneer is? She consistently used the word in appropriately.). The characters were inconsistent (Is the queen a positive character? A negative one?), and behaved inexplicably (so why is the queen against the main character? we never find out.). Plot elements were borrowed freely from other series (e.g., Band of Brothers); the weirdest borrowing was the use of obscure stories from the Old Testament. Some scenes were age-inappropriate (seriously, do you have to describe the rape in that kind of detail to an audience who are developmentally at a stage where their sexuality is developing and being shaped by their experiences?). I wanted to finish the series, just to get some closure on the plot. But halfway through the third book, I got so fed up that I did something I almost never do: I just put down the book and walked away.