So what can I say about this book that so many reviewers have trashed and that I almost ended up DNFing myself? 
 First of all, it's immediately apparent which reviews come from people who stopped reading at 30% or less. It's rare for me to stop reading something but I almost gave up after the first few chapters too, so I understand why there were such negative reviews. It's actually astonishing to me that pretty much by accident - I was stuck waiting for a long time and the only book I had on me was this one - I ended up reading the entire book, giving it five stars, AND writing a long ass review to defend it. Like I said, the beginning was that awful. 
 BUT, and this is a really big BUT, Court of Fives is actually one of those few books which do deserve a full reading before a rating, and this is why: The first half of the book is a mess. The world building is somewhat interesting, but feels borrowed from just about every ancient civilization out there, primarily the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians. It was actually a turn-off at first and was one of the reasons why I just couldn't get into the book. Plus, the plot takes 15 chapters, over 130 PAGES, to actually get started. Seriously! The DNF readers at 30% never even got to the beginning of the conflict, that's how slow the book started. I can't say I blame them for giving up. 
 Then there's the problem of Jessamy, a character who utterly fails to engage the reader until maybe 80% of the way through the book. It turns out that the criticism of her for being selfish and totally focused on the Fives to the extent of endangering and ignoring her whole family is spot on - but a deliberate choice of Elliot's, as that's where Jessamy's belated character growth finally takes off. Jessamy's character started off just too immature and spoiled for the reader to care enough to stick around. Likewise, a lot of the conflict in the novel's plot and overarching plot of the series (trilogy?) feels heavy handed and forced, as if Elliot had epic ideas that she had to boil down to fit a YA novel, but in doing so made some kind of swiss cheese of trite, formulaic YA and Game of Thrones style themes. 
 Without giving away too many spoilers, let's just say that the book starts off as if the entire thing is about Jessamy competing in some meaningless obstacle course slash gladiator style showy competition, but by the end it's just all a metaphor for an empire's political and military intrigues, complete with uprisings from the oppressed native people of the lower class, assassinations, royal families fighting for power, and Lannister-esque incest. 
 Wait, what? 
 No, you read that right. Around 130 pages in, the book finally started its slow climb from zero stars (as in, reader is going to stop reading) to five stars. Well, four and a half and closer to four, but I'm going to do my part to balance out the low ratings, dammit. It's a shame actually because despite all the problems with the first 30% or so of the book, I think the other problem is that people have read so many terrible YA novels, even those written by acclaimed adult authors, that we've trained ourselves to a shorter attention span. How many YA readers these days, whether adult or actual teens, have the patience and mental discipline to actually tackle reading a classic? (Someone out there is probably already complaining that this review is too long and rambling. I was nastily criticized once by someone who commented on a review to let me know how much it sucks because she couldn't make it past the third paragraph, when each "paragraph" was two sentences maximum.) And knowing that most of the time if the first 30% of a YA book sucks, it's a total waste of time to force yourself to read the rest, I can't really blame people for the low ratings. I do really think it's a shame because even though some of these readers probably wouldn't LOVE the book anyway, many of the criticisms and questions posed by the reviewers are actually addressed in the book. 
 Anyway, ok, so what's actually up with this book? Well, Jessamy-aka-Jes improves a great deal and actually starts doing something, the scheming is a bit too convoluted at points and IMO fails totally explain some plot holes, and the romance never clicked for me. In fact, the romance was probably the weakest point, which might as well be a death knell for this book's YA appeal. Surprisingly though, I appreciate the book in a lot of ways. You can feel the inspiration from Alcott's Little Woman and to a lesser extent, maybe even the sisters' relationship in Pride & Prejudice. Personally, the heavy influence of ancient civilizations in the setting reminded me of Eloise Jarvis McGraw's Mara, Daughter of the Nile (or her better known book and Newbery Honor winner, The Golden Goblet. Interesting enough, The Golden Goblet in particular is criticized by modern day readers for its slow pacing and verrrrry slow rising action, but the detail oriented world building/historical setting by Elliot and McGraw feels similar. In fact, Elliot writes so convincingly that I think that was part of the problem readers had with her characters. As I mentioned before, I've read other reviews that correctly called out Jessamy for being selfish, fixated on the Fives competition to the detriment of her family, and spoiled. Kalliarkos similarly is called out by readers for desperately needing to please people around him and gain approval, a trait of his character much exploited by Jes. These traits in Jes and Kal make them childish, naive, and not very attractive to the reader. The funny thing is, Elliot's writing makes it clear that both of these flawed character traits are intentional. While Kal is manipulated by Jes, his desire and ability to gain friends is both his strength and his ultimate downfall; he alternates between being more naive and more aware than his character first suggests. My point is, Elliot's characterizations are so strong and convincing that a reader just skimming through the book is going to leave with those impressions of the characters, when in reality these are just surface identities. Elliot practically hits the reader over the head with these themes when Jessamy (on her slooooow path to self awareness) starts thinks about all the masks that people wear and how little she really knew even the people closest to her. Her father is someone she admires, a soldier and devoted father - but is he just an ambitious coward? Her mother is the perfect, kind, long-suffering aristocratic wife - but is she? Her vapid, silly sister is obsessed with flirting with boys and making an advantageous match (cough P&P) - but does she even like men? The second half of the book pretty much negates or balances the characterizations from most of the first half. 
 In a nutshell, I'm not entirely sure what to make of this book, but at the end of the day, I want to read more. Unfortunately, there's a lot of solid writing and food for thought/analysis that I think won't be appreciated by today's young readers, who are more used to streamlined books along the lines of The Maze Runner. Meanwhile, it's obviously pretty lacking if you judge it by adult fantasy standards. Also, for whatever it's worth, I was impressed enough that after seeing a depressing amount of one star reviews from people who never completed the book, I felt like I had to offer my two cents' worth.