Harrow the Ninth

The first 2/3rds of the book felt like such a betrayal of the first book's amazingness that I was getting legitimately upset. I thought “how could such a great story by such a captivating writer go this wrong?!” It was confusing and weird and not even that interesting.
But SOMEHOW it was all worth it in the end, and once finished, I considered it a total triumph, except possibly that it leaned pretty hard towards being too much of a mind-f√¢£.
Still, I feel like making me slog through 14 hours (I'm guessing ~350 pages) of subtle torment is a little too unforgivable to allow a 5-star rating.