Yoana’s Reviews > The Running Grave > Status Update

Ok, there's some insane suspense around the 65% mark. I stayed up late because I couldn't not know what was going to happen and when it all came to a head, I actually clapped my hands over my mouth. Credit where credit is due, much as I hate to give it

The misogyny running through every book continues, and it's curious how you can trace it getting more conservative with each one. Here, we have people not having children as a shorthand for unsympathetic characters and her pet trope, unmotherly women (that goes all the way back to HP). The nuclear family and monogamy are elevated to the only reasonable and normal states of being and anything else as an aberration

I think JKR is using this cult as an analogy for trans "ideology"; it becomes pretty clear when she explicitly says they use suicide as a boogeyman to keep people imprisoned in the church. There's also the over-the-top church doctrine of condemning familial relationships as materialistic possession - a clear dig at trans people's decision to seek acceptance in their communities because they can't find it at home

I really do not care at which ring characters pick up the phone.

An nnoying plot hole - Robin needs a way to keep time in a place with no calendars, clocks, or news, so she starts hiding a pebble in her bra every day and hiding it under the mattress in the evening - a pebble for each day. But she has a journal assigned to her and a pencil, and she's expected to write in it every day. Isn't that the obvious way? They've solved it for her

It's frustrating trying to buy the allure of the cult when it's all starvation, exhaustion, fear, and animosity. Why would anyone stay past the trial week? Shouldn't the reader be able to understand, feel why characters are drawn to it?

So far, the book is mostly lengthy exposition, including a long prologue that reads like a business brief.

By page 2 of the main body Robin is juxtaposed to yet another harlot so we are reminded how perfect she is. Robin's character has lost all of its complexity in the first book. Even though she had strong "not like other girls" vibes even then, she also had some layers, some believable flaws, fears, etc.

So far:

Prose even clunkier than I remember. Please, please let editors do their job! Recaps of information long established in previous books in every second paragraph, awkwardly tacked on as clauses in long-ass sentences. And even aside from that there's a lot of superfluous information, like no subtext is allowed to exist - everything is painstakingly elucidated in case the reader is a complete idiot.