Review Detail of Rhaelbarnes in The Oracle Paths

The story started great and went on quite well despite having some issues. Towards the latest chapters the story quality has dipped quite sharply. The world building and generally the whole premise of the novel is great and innovative with a fresh breath of air. The only slightly problem that I found is the Shadow Guide. It is an absolute concept inside this novel and a lot of times you will it acting as plot armor , the author forcing situations and as well narrowing the future paths of the plot. Like if someone has a higher rank than you , he can kill you almost anytime he wants (either in an ordeal or in the mirrror universe). The skills that affect your rank or the shadow guide can't be count upon as they are quite common if you are a player. Then we have the characters. They started great , they had their own personalities , problems, strengths. Despite the later down the line the character "development" is quite disappointing. Jake doesn't really improves on the character department. He is still the anti-social , sligtlu proscratinating guy he was. Whenever a girl gets too close to Jake she suddenly gets a stroke and gets removed from the equation for dumb reasons. Also the gang that follows Jake distance themselves from said girls that got the stroke like she is the plague for no fucking reason. For example Amy who was indebted to Jake and saw him as leading figure who pretty much ensured her extended survival , suddenly becomes a fangirl over an earth ex-celebrity who doesn't have any real advantage over Jake at the moment. Moreover before she saw said celebrity guy it was talked how important is to choose your faction as you are pretty much giving your life away to them if you don't have sufficient strength ( we didn't see any noticable talent of hers). Then there is Sarah who had gotten like a lot of attention and development and had evolved from her bitchy , self-centered , cheerleader-like behavior to somewhat more tolerable and smart (which she was) version turn into a brain-dead puppet. She gets close to Jake (like romanticaly) and the author is like trying his hardest to "kill" her off. She does some bad decisions with her bloodlines but nobody from the group is willing to provide the slightest of help and when her bloodlines are acting up everyone behaves like they don't why that happens and distance themselves from her. Even Jake who knows first hand how dealing with said bloodlines could be , does nothing to help Sarah in any possible form or be understanding to why she acts like that. Even his own bloodline which in terms of detriments is a lot tamer can influence his behaviour. He acts oblivious to her advances despite knowing very well her intentions and he is almost like purposefuly teasing her. Now we are in a situation that Sarah is like Amy to the group "dead" as I doubt Ark was gonna ammend their relationship. Lastly after December Ark has pretty much abandoned this novel. He was all about promising about keeping up with late chapters and stuff but in the end he just ended up owing more chapters. We are understanding about his personal matters but you can't promise repeatedly and never deliver. We aren't idiots. Then he anounces that he got another main novel started when he can't even do one chapter/day for his already established novel. Pretty bad work ethics and it seems like he takes us loyal readers as a given (we aren't). Read this on your own discretion.