Struggling with "The Power of Six"

Despite being a huge book worm and reading a few books a week, I'm struggling to finish "The Power of Six" for a couple weeks already. The first one, "I Am Number Four" was an average book that generated a huge hype because the movie came out almost simultaneously as the book. And we all know how excited everybody gets about "the new blockbuster", especially if it stars a fit teenage hunk and a Glee actress...
Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that it's all bout marketing and promotion. I would've never bought that book if it wasn't on the first page of Amazon and on the front stands in the bookshops. All in all, it wasn't that bad, but the sequel is even worse. There is something missing, something loosing hold of my attention but I can't put my finger on it. Is it the flat characters? Is it the very predictable action scenes? Or the story dragging itself in circles and nothing much happening despite the abundance of fight scenes? I don't know.
But what I do know is that in the publishing world today it's all about who you know and how you promote yourself. Unfortunately, it's rarely about what you've written. Once you've lodged your foot in the publishing business' door, you can write any cr*p you want and still make lots of money.
I tried persuading agents and publishers to look at my work for months and nobody even read it before declining representation. Until I picked up my dry cleaning one day and it turned out the girl behind the counter's friend knew somebody who knew this agent's housekeeper's daughter.
It doesn't have to be that way anymore. I strongly believe that soon authors will take their careers back in their own hands and readers and writers alike will only benefit from it.
Back to the "Power of Six" then. Only 100 pages left. Let me just say, I won't be buying the third one.