Bloodtide - Melvin Burgess

I read this on a recommendation, and to be honest, I was faintly amused by the beginning, having all the usual teen-fantasy bricks to build a generic fantasy from: Wise kingly leader, his misbehaving twin children, an arranged marriage and half-human beasts.
Which is why I was pleasantly surprised when the Norse mystery and romance began to permeate. Sadly it was all but non-existant for most of the remainder of the dull plot.
Having created an interesting universe and some characters to use, Burgess promptly hamstrings them, (one literally, one metaphorically) and then proceeds to fill the story with the a series of misplaced and badly written chapters from the point of view of half-human creatures, none of which can decide if they belong in a childs book or an adults.
Which really is the first major problem, Burgess doesn't know what this book is about or who it's meant for. It's far too graphic and bleak for young teens or children and too childish and simple for the older ones and adults. For example, after vividly describing two men being eaten alive by a giant pig-mutant, he follows this up by having monologues from a semi-porcine woman who peppers even her own thoughts with words that inexplicably begin or end with 'oinky'. Presumably in case we forget she is part pig.
The next problem is that the story covers several years, and despite being quite long spends countless pages repeating the same information, most of which revolves around the character's inaction and ambivalence, and virtually no time mentioning the far more interesting events. Instead most often he skips ahead a few months or years and doesn't mention what's been happening. In a long novel with many characters this might work, but in a short one with barely a handful of a cast this becomes downright iritating as it saps what little interest remains after the promise of the beginning.