The String Diaries

A fun ride undercut by its infuriating ending. A mother, newly widowed and desperate to save her daughter, ends a centuries-long battle by sacrificing herself in a gasoline explosion. It is a painful but satisfying (dare I say badass) endpoint for her story. And then, out of nowhere, one of the side characters declares that she can be revived on a technicality — and so she is, at the comparatively minimal cost of her eyesight and the life of a character the reader barely knows. It's a very fanficcy ass-pull of a plot point. I have no idea how this man knew her heritage, why he withheld that information for the entire plot, or how this magical revival improves the story.

There is a sequel focusing on the daughter, and I have purposely ignored it due to the bad taste this book left. I have, however, considered rereading The String Diaries to see whether the ending's stupidity was properly foreshadowed by earlier stupidity.