[Hugh Manatee]

Titus Groan is like that too, you got to stick it out for awhile till steerpike escapes from the prison tower(about 80 pages in, the chapter is called First Blood, then the one after,the christening and then over the roofscape, you should skim the stuff about fuschia's attic to get some character info on her), then it gets interesting. It does has some "low" points and some places to drag just a bit but when it's gets going, it's worth having trudged through.