Eldest is no better than Eragon. The protagonist is not likeable at all, exasperating, and dim. As for the writing, Paolini sounds ever so slightly less like a 7th grader with a thesaurus than he did in the first book. However, his descriptions are useless, bore the reader, …more and fail to help the reader visualize what is being described. There are many descriptions of gore as well. Sex is implied at one point, and Eragon behaves inappropriately towards Arya, the elf he has a creepy, stalker-like crush on. (Really, CP? That’s your strategy to make Eragon seem like a good person?) While every character should have flaws, Eragon is all flaws and no virtue. A bit sad considering CP based Eragon on himself… (less)