I was pretty frustrated with the main character in the first few books, and I still don't especially like her. But now I think you're not really supposed to. She's recovering from trauma and working through depression and is self sabatoging, hoping for death without admitting it to herself, and generally lying to herself about a lot of her motivations.

But I'm glad I stuck with it. Watching Toby slowly slowly work through what's happened to her is worth it.

It's made me more sympathetic to my depressed friends. I get frustrated with them sometimes because I like them and know how amazing they are, but they don't believe me. Getting to read Toby's incredibly unreflective perspective is illuminating.

One of the things that annoyed me earlier in the series was how everyone thought so will of her and loved her so much when she seemed utterly reactive and useless. And perhaps, in the short time I'd been with the character, she kind of was. But Toby isn't giving us much of her past and it's easyto brush off references to her past achievements because Toby herself does. You're in Toby's brain, seeing everything through the lying filter of depression. Of course I hated Toby because she hated herself and that was the only perspective I really noticed.

Anyway, I'm enjoying the world and some of the side characters and even if I don't love Toby yet, I'm interested in finding out if she ever learns to care about herself.

The books do feel a bit drawn out - I'm always more engaged by the overarching story of the books than the smaller mystery adventure of the individual books. I'm glad I'm reading them instead of listening to them so I can go faster. Otoh I might have noticed what was going on with the mental health storyline faster if I'd been paying more attention...