hot take, bums me out to hate on a book that features a smarty-pants character who goes to Caltech!!! yayyy (even if that’s only because our FMC is based on SoCal and so MIT really isn’t an option). but overall it was hard to get behind the set up for this, even as someone who’s all about the tropes.
It felt like we went through a lot to get to the conceit of being in the remote Alaskan wilderness, in a way that really wasn’t necessary? Perhaps it’s because I have a really dim view of what ‘cancels’ a novelist in these days. Would it have been bad to have a secret file (conveniently hacked and shared by a superfan) with the “real” endings for your characters? Maybe? It feels like you could write it off as a cynical joke, and then your readers would just come back for your next book? That’s what fanfic is for?
And then there’s the whole set up, with the remote Alaskan wilderness and the letters from the chronically ill sister and the father that all felt like too many extraneous bits. I also didn’t quite get the red line of “Margot is actually scared/needs to be shown that she’s brave and so needs to go on a hike in the Alaskan wilderness that she is DEFINITELY NOT prepared for”? Or perhaps it’s more my cynical camper that has come out and is like, hello you cannot go for a hike in the snow/cold without having prepped for it, your boots will give you blisters! You need to know how to use crampons! If you sprain your ankle someone has to carry you down and like, it’s not going to be as easy as they make it out to be here!
It was also a bit of a let down how quickly the third arc conflict happened and then how quickly it was resolved compared to how long it stewed (off-page, natch). End day, not for me, maybe for you.