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For reading, I don't have anything specific regarding the Azovs for you on hand, but I would recommend reading into how the oligarchs of Ukraine were involved in the Nova Russia uprising, both in aligning with and against, and how the early 2014 militias were formed / organized / incorporated into the Ukrainian armed forces.
Being a particularly effective fighting force is why they are prestigious, despite the infamy. But being a particularly effective unit is not an exceptional status, it is a relative status, and half of all units are above average.
What sets Azovs above and apart from most other above-average units- in additional to much higher media visibility (in part due to Russian efforts)- is that the Azovs have been at some of the more notable front lines where the Russians simultaneously had the most visibility but also showed their limits, which naturally leads to the self-serving deflection narratives of 'we're not bad, they're just good.' That was literally how they first gained notice- their origin is that of a militia formed and fighting before the formal armed forces of Ukraine were able to be reorganized during the Nova Russia campaign (giving Azov rivals of mostly-forgotten militias that didn't stand the test of time) in a conflict that the Russian proxies did so badly in that (giving the Azovs a contextual win) that the Russian army had to intervene (giving their survival it's own victory-against-the-odds narrative).
Consider how the 'modern' Azov's most significant performance was in the Mariupol defense of 2022, when the Russians were forced into a three month siege. For the later in particular, a three month siege of basically March / April / May 24. Standing ground and holding out in a 3-month siege is no joke and deserves the kudos... but it's also shaped by the factor that they had very good reason to believe the Russians would kill them outright (or in a show trial) if they surrendered due to them being used as part of the Russian de-nazification war narrative, and the fact that multi-month sieges were kind of a defining characteristic of the Russian invasion after the first few months, and also that the mariupol offensive was the primary Russian offensive in that part of Summer 22 while most of the rest of the front was static with marginal creeping artillery advances elsewhere. So while the fact that the Azovs fought hard is true and commendable, but it's also relatively normal for units of highly motivated people with good cause to fear surrender, and the dramatic image of defense and hard fighting was... kind of normal across the line in a number of places.
Azov's distinction in the war isn't hard fighting or urban defensive fighting. It's branding while doing that, when most Ukrainian units that did so lack the reputation or international visiblity or the contextual international drama for the times Azov was most visible when Ukraine was still in chaos in 2014, and when the post-Kyiev Russian offensive was still new and uncertain in 2022 and people thought a dedicated Russian offensive in the south could sweep the southern coast. After the Mariupole campaign, most people understood the Russians weren't going to steamroll the south, so units that fought just as hard wouldn't get the same valor / public credit that Azov did because it was expected rather than a surprise for the Russians to struggle so hard for so long.
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