I enjoyed the series and I even enjoyed the first book but it was very long. So long it probably won’t be a repeat read for me. There was a lot of repeating thing, which normally drives me nuts, in this case, I understood it because OX is a little slow to some degree. I think that’s also why the book was so long, or that’s how I interpreted it.
overall, I agree with your review. I really did enjoy the book but I had to overlook a lot of the things you mentioned to get there. I like Joe and Ox enough to do it.