Action packed, but ultimately, just okay

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The Sin in the Steel had some very cool fantasy elements going on - I liked the mages and the Gods and the Sin Eaters, and I would have liked to see more of the magic-infused things that they could build, like that mortar on the Sea Dragon.
The action was well described and exciting.
But overall this didn't work for me. The main character was really a brat and kind of a villain. Extremely arrogant, too, going on about how smart she is and how incredibly fast her brain works, but never really proving it.
Eld was just an okay "tortured soldier" sidekick.
Chan Sha was great, though.
The main villain turned out to be kind of lame. An undead-ish pirate leading a horde of zombies and he's only scary for the first minute you encounter him.
The plot relied on coincidences too much, and dances way too close to Pirates of the Carribean, in my opinion.
Additional note - the book's fixation on the ages of the main characters really took me out of it in a bad way. Why do we need to keep being reminded that Buc is so young and so mature for her age and Eld is so old, many many times, when meanwhile the romantic connection is supposed to be building. This trope ought to be dead because it is gross. Apparently they're "correcting" it in the final version, according to the sticker on the back of the ARC that I recieved. I guess I'm not the only one who felt this way! But simply fiddling with the numbers will make a lot of those references make no sense at all.
Honestly, this book needs another edit. It has potential but too many things are falling flat.