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tilly_wizard's reviews
174 reviews
The Hemlock Queen by Hannah Whitten
Hannah Whitten interview with Hiba Tahir, 4 April 2024:
I'm trying to be open-minded and hoping Hannah Whitten can salvage this story in book 3, but this trilogy seems to be turning into a checklist of tropes I generally hate, and so far I'm not buying what she's trying to sell me.
If anything, she seems to be trying to go for a subversion of the usual dualistic, symbiotic dynamic of characters with elemental powers - Apollius and Nyxara started as humans without any apparent special destiny, and then usurped the natural powers of Light and Darkness. The characters of the other gods aren't developed enough to say whether their elemental powers reflect their personalities, but she doesn't do the obvious thing and pair up the fire god with the water goddess, either. Basically the gods (and their modern counterparts) are people who have chanced into elemental powers, but not the elemental symbolism that usually accompanies such powers. I suppose that's a valid choice for a story where the theme is characters denying the destinies they've inherited from their previous incarnations, but that's just not a theme I'm personally interested in reading about.
The 21st-century-American style of the dialogue is even more obnoxious here than it was in the first book, because in the flashback sequences taking place hundreds of years ago, the gods still speak in the same register as the modern day characters.
Hannah Whitten:
You don't say. The problem is not the foreshadowing; the problem is that every time something is foreshadowed, when the foreshadowed event occurs several hundred pages later, the text goes out of its way to make sure the reader notices that this was foreshadowed (which is to say, to make sure the reader notices how very clever and skilled the author is). Frequently Lore's inner monologue also tells us exactly how to interpret the words of other characters (for example, by taking note of when Bastian refers to Gabe by his surname instead of his first name), rather than just letting the dialogue speak for itself. I always take this sort of self-commentary inserted into the text as an indication that an author (or editor) is either insecure about the quality of the writing, or insulting the intelligence of their readers, and I find it's one of the most immersion-breaking thing an author can do.
In my review of book 1 I was very annoyed about how Lore and Bastian were very obvious Rey/Kylo analogues, which inevitably left me feeling mean-spirited towards Gabe. The addition of a love triangle is the only thing that could have made TRoS worse than it already was.
My feelings toward him have not improved, because this book is overly preoccupied with this love triangle situation (really more of a "lust" triangle because Lore's attraction to both men seems to be primarily physical) to the detriment of every other aspect of the plot and characters; neither the plot nor the characters develop enough to justify this many pages of nothing interesting happening. The one minor character who is the most elaborated upon is, of course, the one who dies.
Lore and Gabe barely interact for the first half of the book, but Lore expends a lot of words whining about how it's just so unfair that she has to marry Bastian for the sake of appearances when she wants to be with both men, a complaint which comes off as supremely selfish in a pseudo-historical setting where both of the other most prominent female characters are pushed into unwanted arranged marriages. Supposedly Bastian and Gabe are yearning for each other, although this might only be in Lore's imagination because they hardly ever so much as occupy the same physical space. In general I came away with the distinct impression of double standards of the unironic girlboss/"women's wrongs" variety. This whole polyamory shitshow got started when,hundreds of years ago when the gods were still mortals, Nyxara cheated on Apollius with one of their friends while he was away on a journey. Near the end when Lore is planning to make her escape from the palace, she has unplanned sex with Bastian because she can't control her lust, and then she chloroforms him unconscious. Can you just imagine a male love interest doing that to a female character?
Those elements of the plot which have the potential to be interesting are always relegated to the background - although there are several flashbacks and dream sequences of the previous age when the gods were mortal, we learn nothing about what the setting was like in this ancient era; the raison d'etre of the Kirythean Empire is to unite the known world in anticipation of the return of Apollius, and the current Emperor unexpectedly seems to be a man of genuine faith who is willing to hand control of the Empire over to the reincarnated god, but also isn't a complete villain; as a devout monk (thanks to Lore's obsession with sex in the midst of all these assassinations, terrorist attacks and imminent wars that are going on, we are repeatedly told that Gabe is the only one of the monks who actually abides by his vows of celibacy), Gabe should be having an all-consuming crisis of faith, but his feelings about the return of the gods are only mentioned in a couple of chapters and not from his POV. As is typical with these types of stories about evil fantasy-Christianity, by having the protagonist be someone who never had any faith in the god(s) in the first place, Whitten has given herself an easy escape from needing to write the type of thorough, meaningful, applicable introspection that you would expect from a novel about religious trauma, such as the POV character working through their emotional response to the betrayal of the god(s) and the realisation that the beliefs that have shaped their life were founded upon lies perpetuated by the people they trusted most. The question of whether the good that has come from the institution of the religion (e.g. political stability, education, sublime art) outweighs the bad doesn't arise because Lore has only negative opinions and experiences of religion and religious people. She also doesn't have to make a choice about whether to cut herself off from friends and family and suffer from the resulting guilt and isolation, because by happy coincidence all her friends share her predicament of being possessed by divine powers, and are all immediately willing to disavow the supreme god as evil and flee the country with her (even the monks!).
I'm not even sure what I want from book 3, but I'm certainly not rooting for Lore, Gabe and Bastian to live happily ever after as a throuple because at this point in the story I don't really like any of them as individuals, let alone in combination.
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
2.0
Hannah Whitten interview with Hiba Tahir, 4 April 2024:
I knew I wanted to do the theme of not necessarily resurrection but like rebirthing ...and the idea that where you are born to be with this person but it's wrong for whatever reason, or you're like "I actually don't want that..."
I'm trying to be open-minded and hoping Hannah Whitten can salvage this story in book 3, but this trilogy seems to be turning into a checklist of tropes I generally hate, and so far I'm not buying what she's trying to sell me.
If anything, she seems to be trying to go for a subversion of the usual dualistic, symbiotic dynamic of characters with elemental powers - Apollius and Nyxara started as humans without any apparent special destiny, and then usurped the natural powers of Light and Darkness. The characters of the other gods aren't developed enough to say whether their elemental powers reflect their personalities, but she doesn't do the obvious thing and pair up the fire god with the water goddess, either. Basically the gods (and their modern counterparts) are people who have chanced into elemental powers, but not the elemental symbolism that usually accompanies such powers. I suppose that's a valid choice for a story where the theme is characters denying the destinies they've inherited from their previous incarnations, but that's just not a theme I'm personally interested in reading about.
The 21st-century-American style of the dialogue is even more obnoxious here than it was in the first book, because in the flashback sequences taking place hundreds of years ago, the gods still speak in the same register as the modern day characters.
Hannah Whitten:
I love a foreshadow so I love to like stick stuff in there and I'm always like, "I'm gonna be way too heavy-handed."
You don't say. The problem is not the foreshadowing; the problem is that every time something is foreshadowed, when the foreshadowed event occurs several hundred pages later, the text goes out of its way to make sure the reader notices that this was foreshadowed (which is to say, to make sure the reader notices how very clever and skilled the author is). Frequently Lore's inner monologue also tells us exactly how to interpret the words of other characters (for example, by taking note of when Bastian refers to Gabe by his surname instead of his first name), rather than just letting the dialogue speak for itself. I always take this sort of self-commentary inserted into the text as an indication that an author (or editor) is either insecure about the quality of the writing, or insulting the intelligence of their readers, and I find it's one of the most immersion-breaking thing an author can do.
Hiba Tahir: Tell me how the trilogy came to be. What was the initial spark that led to the premise?
Hannah Whitten: So the initial spark of the trilogy was me going to see The Rise of Skywalker and hating it a lot. Um, mostly because - for many reasons, but the one that most led into this trilogy was the whole Rey Palpatine thing, and having conversations with friends who had also seen the movie about how that could have been an effective twist if it had been set up properly, and if it had any cost and any payoff instead of just being like, "Here you go, we heard you guys like Palpatine, so we got you a Palpatine."...So it made me think a lot about what that story would be, of a girl from nowhere who doesn't seem important at the outset, but it turns out that she is the linchpin of this world domination plan and is the heir to this dark awful power that people have been working for years to try to keep suppressed...
In my review of book 1 I was very annoyed about how Lore and Bastian were very obvious Rey/Kylo analogues, which inevitably left me feeling mean-spirited towards Gabe. The addition of a love triangle is the only thing that could have made TRoS worse than it already was.
My feelings toward him have not improved, because this book is overly preoccupied with this love triangle situation (really more of a "lust" triangle because Lore's attraction to both men seems to be primarily physical) to the detriment of every other aspect of the plot and characters; neither the plot nor the characters develop enough to justify this many pages of nothing interesting happening. The one minor character who is the most elaborated upon is, of course, the one who dies.
Lore and Gabe barely interact for the first half of the book, but Lore expends a lot of words whining about how it's just so unfair that she has to marry Bastian for the sake of appearances when she wants to be with both men, a complaint which comes off as supremely selfish in a pseudo-historical setting where both of the other most prominent female characters are pushed into unwanted arranged marriages. Supposedly Bastian and Gabe are yearning for each other, although this might only be in Lore's imagination because they hardly ever so much as occupy the same physical space. In general I came away with the distinct impression of double standards of the unironic girlboss/"women's wrongs" variety. This whole polyamory shitshow got started when,
Those elements of the plot which have the potential to be interesting are always relegated to the background - although there are several flashbacks and dream sequences of the previous age when the gods were mortal, we learn nothing about what the setting was like in this ancient era; the raison d'etre of the Kirythean Empire is to unite the known world in anticipation of the return of Apollius, and the current Emperor unexpectedly seems to be a man of genuine faith who is willing to hand control of the Empire over to the reincarnated god, but also isn't a complete villain; as a devout monk (thanks to Lore's obsession with sex in the midst of all these assassinations, terrorist attacks and imminent wars that are going on, we are repeatedly told that Gabe is the only one of the monks who actually abides by his vows of celibacy), Gabe should be having an all-consuming crisis of faith, but his feelings about the return of the gods are only mentioned in a couple of chapters and not from his POV. As is typical with these types of stories about evil fantasy-Christianity, by having the protagonist be someone who never had any faith in the god(s) in the first place, Whitten has given herself an easy escape from needing to write the type of thorough, meaningful, applicable introspection that you would expect from a novel about religious trauma, such as the POV character working through their emotional response to the betrayal of the god(s) and the realisation that the beliefs that have shaped their life were founded upon lies perpetuated by the people they trusted most. The question of whether the good that has come from the institution of the religion (e.g. political stability, education, sublime art) outweighs the bad doesn't arise because Lore has only negative opinions and experiences of religion and religious people. She also doesn't have to make a choice about whether to cut herself off from friends and family and suffer from the resulting guilt and isolation, because by happy coincidence all her friends share her predicament of being possessed by divine powers, and are all immediately willing to disavow the supreme god as evil and flee the country with her (even the monks!).
I'm not even sure what I want from book 3, but I'm certainly not rooting for Lore, Gabe and Bastian to live happily ever after as a throuple because at this point in the story I don't really like any of them as individuals, let alone in combination.
The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo
Rule of Wolves:
Shadow and Bone:
Shadow and Bone:
Shadow and Bone:
4.0
The real miracle is that Leigh, my nemesis since 2014, has finally (finally! after 10 years!) written a book with a decent ending.
Absolutely everything else about it is thoroughly average (the plot, which is awfully paced and irritatingly YA-adjacent owing to the wholly unnecessary magic tournament; the lack of deep exploration and development of the characters, none of whom have what I would consider “authentic” or believable perspectives for their historical context; the prose, which is decent but not brilliant, etc etc), but my expectations were in the pits of hell, so I’m willing to forgive all that and I’m still feeling generous towards it. All’s well that ends well, as they say.
I expected another Darklina redux, this time with a superficial 16th century Spanish veneer, and that is pretty much exactly what I got, with one important difference(!).
Even more so than in Ninth House, quite a few of Darklina's greatest hits are remixed in this book. Observe:
The Familiar:
Absolutely everything else about it is thoroughly average (the plot, which is awfully paced and irritatingly YA-adjacent owing to the wholly unnecessary magic tournament; the lack of deep exploration and development of the characters, none of whom have what I would consider “authentic” or believable perspectives for their historical context; the prose, which is decent but not brilliant, etc etc), but my expectations were in the pits of hell, so I’m willing to forgive all that and I’m still feeling generous towards it. All’s well that ends well, as they say.
I expected another Darklina redux, this time with a superficial 16th century Spanish veneer, and that is pretty much exactly what I got, with one important difference(!).
Even more so than in Ninth House, quite a few of Darklina's greatest hits are remixed in this book. Observe:
The Familiar:
He had been asleep for so long. He didn't want to rouse himself to part the curtains and squint against the sunlight. Yet here was this sad servant pulling magic from the air and forcing him awake.
Rule of Wolves:
Because with her he was human again. How had she bested him? Sheer stubbornness. Something more. He's known a name for it once, a hundred lifetimes ago.
---
The Familiar:
The Familiar:
Then the door was closed and she was pressed against it, his mouth on hers, his body a dark cloud descending.
Shadow and Bone:
...as soon as the door closed, he was kissing me and I could think of nothing else...He had me pushed up against the door now, his hips hard against mine.
---
The Familiar:
The Familiar:
"How well do you understand the familiar's power...Are you fucking him?"
Luzia rose and paced to the apple trees so her aunt wouldn't see her flush. "Does it matter?"
"Only if you let it. Only if you start imagining you can save him?"
"What if I could?"
"Think to your own future, Luzia."
...
"All you need to do is go to the stables and ask for a horse. I've left money with the groom there. He'll help you. Just consider it."
Shadow and Bone:
"You do not know him, Alina...But I do...I am the only person who knows what he truly is, what he truly intends. And I am telling you that you must run."
...
"You can slip out with the performers tonight...Your passage has been paid."
---
The Familiar:
The Familiar:
"You must be careful with...with Santangel."
It seemed everyone wanted to warn her today. "Because he made a deal with the devil?'
Valentina winced. She shook her head, "Because he is a man, Luzia."
Shadow and Bone:
"Just...be careful."
I stared at her, baffled. "Of what?"
"Of powerful men."
---
The dual imagery in this one is a bit disorderly and not as effective, because it's impossible to beat the sun and the moon, the light and the darkness. Santangel's symbol is the scorpion (self-explanatory; unfortunately he can't transform into a giant scorpion, or a swarm of scorpions, or anything fun like that); more broadly, venomous insects symbolise greed or profane magic (Luzia's attempts to multiply
gold and jewels spontaneously generate spiders); Luzia's symbols are oranges and orange blossoms (which do put one in mind of the sun, and are generally symbolic of good fortune, happiness, prosperity, and so on), and pomegranates (and of course Leigh must take a whole paragraph to assure us that she knows that pomegranates have many symbolic meanings outside of Greek mythology). Because I've spent too long haunting Leigh's walls and I'm too aware of her influences, the use of the orange trees to symbolise Luzia's Spanish origin did put me in mind of GRRM's persistent association of Daenerys with the lemon tree, but I expect that's just a nice coincidence.
My emphasis on Leigh's repetitiveness is by no means a disparagement. The assortment of dubiously accurate 20th century psychoanalytical/anthropological theories from which TGT was ultimately derived (the Death and the Maiden folktale archetype, Estes' Underground Forest, Graves' White Goddess theory, etc), by way of pastiche of teenaged-Leigh's favourite Mean Wizard Stories of the mid-80s-90s and a handful of other genre classics, are eternal winners that have loomed large in the landscape of modern fantasy on and off since the 1970s, and I will never, ever tire of these types of stories.
Since Leigh is a known fan of Anne Rice and we are having a minor Ricean resurgence owing to the AMC series (and, I suspect, in retaliation to the Twilight Renaissance, because quite a few of those killjoys who insisted that Twilight was The End of Feminism and the Death of Literature the first time around have become authors in the past few years), I was anticipating this as a posthumous Rice tribute. There are some passing similarities to Rice's early works (Santangel being the immortal guardian of a family line is the obvious point of comparison, although nothing in this book is anywhere near as gruesome as the events of The Mayfair Witches, and there is also a middle-aged woman trapped in the body of a young girl), but this feels like a TGT historical AU more than anything else, even moreso than Ninth House felt like a Dark Academia AU. The research bibliography at the end seems outsized considering that the level of detail given to the milieu isn't anything you couldn't learn from reading a few Wikipedia pages, but honestly that's fine; after the treatment of Russian history and language in TGT, anyone who comes into a Bardugo novel expecting deep historical authenticity is kidding themselves. In any case, the book is too short with too many characters taking up space to allow for a thorough exploration of the setting.
Once again, an impoverished girl of persecuted racial background is supervised in the use of her uniquely special magical powers by a sinister but sexy immortal man, who is secretly planning to exploit her powers in order to free himself from the cruelty of the bloodline he is bound to serve; the heroine's magic and inner light begins to restore his humanity and he develops tender feelings for her. Unfortunately for him, the embittered women in the heroine's entourage attempt to sabotage the burgeoning romance by urging the heroine to beware of his dangerous allure and to run away, but fortunately for us all, this time the heroine has a spine and a decent amount of faith in her own abilities, so she decides to give him the benefit of the doubt and sticks by him, sparing both of them (and all of us readers) an eternity of misery.
In fact, this book constantly positions itself as being aggressively in opposition to TGT, often directly recreating the same scenarios and then overturning them. Luzia's defining character trait is that she is hungry for power, love and a comfortable life, and she is allowed to have all of these things! And to keep them at the end! Although this particular immortal sad man is quite a bit less sympathetic than dear old Darkles (rather than being a member of the oppressed minority who was born with the curse of immortality and has dedicated his life to fighting a centuries-long battle for the freedom of his people, Santangel was born into some kind of aristocracy - the time period and political geography of this backstory is very vague - and sold his soul for an eternal life of hedonism, with no greater purpose), for some reasonhe is allowed to have the happily ever after ending that the Darkling was denied.
He's just not as much fun though, not as intense - the fact that the Darkling, upon first encountering Alina, stabs her in the arm with a dagger, and then in the next book threatens to skin her alive, is just very special to me, ok? - now that "dark" love interests are the common thing, and this book is in the Adult demographic, I was hoping for more dastardly behaviour, but as far as morally grey tortured immortals go, Santangel is disappointingly milquetoast.
Leigh isn't very active online these days but I hope someone puts the question to her, in an interview or something - Is this a tacit acknowledgement that she has listened to and learned from the 10 years worth of backlash against the disempowering and just plain depressing ending of TGT? Now that enemies-to-lovers, immortal romance and "dark" romance are hugely popular and widely accepted tropes, has she finally gotten over whatever personal damage she blamed on her teenage self for being in love with Raistlin (my beloved), Jareth (not even slightly scary lmao), Randall Flagg (definitely the worst of the bunch, but still definitely fictional and thus incapable of causing real harm) et al, and accepted that human civilisation won't come to an end if women are allowed to read silly fantasy books where morally imperfect magic people live happily ever after? Does she honestly think different moral standards should be applied to books published in the YA and Adult categories? What is the reason for this about-face?
I really would like to award five stars for this Real Life Character Development of the Author, but unfortunately some of Leigh's worst habits from Ninth House are still on flagrant display - most notably, every male character other than the love interest is The Worst Ever in ways that are repulsive and entirely unsympathetic, and scenes take random swerves into the grotesque and disgusting for no particular reason aside from shock value (at least one minor character is mentioned solely for the purpose of having a man attempt to sexually coerce the heroine); meanwhile, the bad behaviour of female characters is always ascribed to the trauma of life under The Patriarchy.
In general, this is about the level of quality I expect from a debut novel, but considering this is Leigh's thirteenth(!) book (including the short stories) I feel it ought to be held to a higher standard.
Here's hoping for an even better conclusion for Ninth House #3. Can she do it again?
The dual imagery in this one is a bit disorderly and not as effective, because it's impossible to beat the sun and the moon, the light and the darkness. Santangel's symbol is the scorpion (self-explanatory; unfortunately he can't transform into a giant scorpion, or a swarm of scorpions, or anything fun like that); more broadly, venomous insects symbolise greed or profane magic (Luzia's attempts to multiply
gold and jewels spontaneously generate spiders); Luzia's symbols are oranges and orange blossoms (which do put one in mind of the sun, and are generally symbolic of good fortune, happiness, prosperity, and so on), and pomegranates (and of course Leigh must take a whole paragraph to assure us that she knows that pomegranates have many symbolic meanings outside of Greek mythology). Because I've spent too long haunting Leigh's walls and I'm too aware of her influences, the use of the orange trees to symbolise Luzia's Spanish origin did put me in mind of GRRM's persistent association of Daenerys with the lemon tree, but I expect that's just a nice coincidence.
My emphasis on Leigh's repetitiveness is by no means a disparagement. The assortment of dubiously accurate 20th century psychoanalytical/anthropological theories from which TGT was ultimately derived (the Death and the Maiden folktale archetype, Estes' Underground Forest, Graves' White Goddess theory, etc), by way of pastiche of teenaged-Leigh's favourite Mean Wizard Stories of the mid-80s-90s and a handful of other genre classics, are eternal winners that have loomed large in the landscape of modern fantasy on and off since the 1970s, and I will never, ever tire of these types of stories.
Since Leigh is a known fan of Anne Rice and we are having a minor Ricean resurgence owing to the AMC series (and, I suspect, in retaliation to the Twilight Renaissance, because quite a few of those killjoys who insisted that Twilight was The End of Feminism and the Death of Literature the first time around have become authors in the past few years), I was anticipating this as a posthumous Rice tribute. There are some passing similarities to Rice's early works (Santangel being the immortal guardian of a family line is the obvious point of comparison, although nothing in this book is anywhere near as gruesome as the events of The Mayfair Witches, and there is also a middle-aged woman trapped in the body of a young girl), but this feels like a TGT historical AU more than anything else, even moreso than Ninth House felt like a Dark Academia AU. The research bibliography at the end seems outsized considering that the level of detail given to the milieu isn't anything you couldn't learn from reading a few Wikipedia pages, but honestly that's fine; after the treatment of Russian history and language in TGT, anyone who comes into a Bardugo novel expecting deep historical authenticity is kidding themselves. In any case, the book is too short with too many characters taking up space to allow for a thorough exploration of the setting.
Once again, an impoverished girl of persecuted racial background is supervised in the use of her uniquely special magical powers by a sinister but sexy immortal man, who is secretly planning to exploit her powers in order to free himself from the cruelty of the bloodline he is bound to serve; the heroine's magic and inner light begins to restore his humanity and he develops tender feelings for her. Unfortunately for him, the embittered women in the heroine's entourage attempt to sabotage the burgeoning romance by urging the heroine to beware of his dangerous allure and to run away, but fortunately for us all, this time the heroine has a spine and a decent amount of faith in her own abilities, so she decides to give him the benefit of the doubt and sticks by him, sparing both of them (and all of us readers) an eternity of misery.
In fact, this book constantly positions itself as being aggressively in opposition to TGT, often directly recreating the same scenarios and then overturning them. Luzia's defining character trait is that she is hungry for power, love and a comfortable life, and she is allowed to have all of these things! And to keep them at the end! Although this particular immortal sad man is quite a bit less sympathetic than dear old Darkles (rather than being a member of the oppressed minority who was born with the curse of immortality and has dedicated his life to fighting a centuries-long battle for the freedom of his people, Santangel was born into some kind of aristocracy - the time period and political geography of this backstory is very vague - and sold his soul for an eternal life of hedonism, with no greater purpose), for some reason
He's just not as much fun though, not as intense - the fact that the Darkling, upon first encountering Alina, stabs her in the arm with a dagger, and then in the next book threatens to skin her alive, is just very special to me, ok? - now that "dark" love interests are the common thing, and this book is in the Adult demographic, I was hoping for more dastardly behaviour, but as far as morally grey tortured immortals go, Santangel is disappointingly milquetoast.
Leigh isn't very active online these days but I hope someone puts the question to her, in an interview or something - Is this a tacit acknowledgement that she has listened to and learned from the 10 years worth of backlash against the disempowering and just plain depressing ending of TGT? Now that enemies-to-lovers, immortal romance and "dark" romance are hugely popular and widely accepted tropes, has she finally gotten over whatever personal damage she blamed on her teenage self for being in love with Raistlin (my beloved), Jareth (not even slightly scary lmao), Randall Flagg (definitely the worst of the bunch, but still definitely fictional and thus incapable of causing real harm) et al, and accepted that human civilisation won't come to an end if women are allowed to read silly fantasy books where morally imperfect magic people live happily ever after? Does she honestly think different moral standards should be applied to books published in the YA and Adult categories? What is the reason for this about-face?
I really would like to award five stars for this Real Life Character Development of the Author, but unfortunately some of Leigh's worst habits from Ninth House are still on flagrant display - most notably, every male character other than the love interest is The Worst Ever in ways that are repulsive and entirely unsympathetic, and scenes take random swerves into the grotesque and disgusting for no particular reason aside from shock value (at least one minor character is mentioned solely for the purpose of having a man attempt to sexually coerce the heroine); meanwhile, the bad behaviour of female characters is always ascribed to the trauma of life under The Patriarchy.
In general, this is about the level of quality I expect from a debut novel, but considering this is Leigh's thirteenth(!) book (including the short stories) I feel it ought to be held to a higher standard.
Here's hoping for an even better conclusion for Ninth House #3. Can she do it again?