Review by edamamebean - The Conditions of Will

edamamebean 's review for:

The Conditions of Will by Jessa Hastings

2.0

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

TLDR: Not a good book, but entertaining enough to hate-read.

There are so many problems I had with this book but I have chosen the few that bothered me the most and written them here. Spoilers below!

I’ll just say it up front - I don’t like that rape is the big plot twist in the first act of this book. What I especially don’t like is how Jessa Hastings managed to take a crime committed by a man and twist it to make it a woman’s fault. All of the women in this book are treated far more harshly than any of the men who are either complicit or perpetrators. This is a huge plot point of the book. If you struggle to read about sexual assault like I do, I can’t recommend picking this up. This book will hit you over the head with it at every opportunity.

Another plot twist pet peeve of mine is when it’s revealed that a character is *gasp* gay. Why are we treating someone’s sexuality like such a shocking thing that it’s worthy of being a main plot twist? I only ever see this from straight authors, and primarily from white women. Why are we still doing this in the Year of Our Lord 2025???

I also take issue with the Christianity in this book. It didn’t feel like Jessa Hastings set out to create a character with a complicated relationship to Christianity - more that she wanted a soap box upon which to talk about her own beliefs. It ends up giving very “I’m not like other Christians, I’m a cool Christian” vibes and I’m not falling for it. Especially after learning about the author’s involvement in Hillsong. At one point, the main love interest (an atheist) says to the main character “I think your God sounds pretty cool,” which is every Evangelicals’ WET DREAM. The whole thesis of this book felt very “sluts and queers can be Christian too, but I’m not either of those things. I’m just misunderstood.” Okay great. Thank you for that.

And on that note, Georgia is an insufferable main character. Her reactions to literally everything are completely disproportionate. Every social interaction immediately gets dialed up to a ten. She is a reactive, unregulated mess who bulldozes and screams her way through the entire story. How is it possible for a person who almost has a PhD in Psychology to be this emotionally immature? And don’t even get me started on her body language expertise. It’s a pseudoscience, yet in this book it’s treated like a fucking superpower.

Even without those issues, this book feels…unedited? I caught a lot of mistakes, spelling errors, and even misuse of words that should have been fixed before publication. All of that said, I did end up reading the whole thing. Despite throwing this book across the room in frustration multiple times, it was entertaining enough to keep me reading.

Content Warnings