Arcane (The Arinthian Line 1)

The beginning of this book was much more palatable than that of the others. The main character is an orphan who has been treated badly, but has been taken in by a knight who taught him to read as well as many other things. The boy is bullied and has no friends, but the knight invests in him so he has a purpose in life. Then a terrible army comes to his village and destroys it, and the boy escapes. A woman finds him and tells him she can teach him magic. Up to this point I felt like it was a good story that could develop into an epic, but from here the boy's behavior and thoughts become more juvenile, and he soon meets some other children who are even more juvenile. The boy is supposedly 14 (maybe 13?), and he meets another boy who is older than him. The other boy constantly teases him from the start, and some of the teasing takes the form of parroting. Are they first-graders? That's hardly teenage behavior. Given this is early in the books, I would normally stick it out, but I realized that this is supposed to be a YA series, meaning the characters probably won't grow up very soon. I haven't returned the book yet, but I'm doubtful that I can read much farther if I give it another chance.