Impostor Syndrome by Mishell Baker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There's a lot to love about this UF that refuses to bow down to the usual expectations.

But then, this series does follow a *certain* set of expectations. For one, it completely relies on all types of mental illness to drive character arcs. It's not just the MC who is bipolar, who had attempted suicide, lost her legs, and yet still manages to use her head and save the day as a productive (if often very destructive) employee in a Fae (be it Seele or Unseele court) world. Ahem. Excuse me. Worlds. This takes place in both the Fae lands and LA (with some travel around the world).

This has got to be the most wildly diverse novel I've ever read. Not only mental spectrums are accounted for, but sexual, social, and ideological. Everyone has a place and usually they all want to murder each other or are willing to do it in a more socially acceptable (if also very destructive) way. :)

In this novel, we have a great Heist fiction with a wildly diverse cast and I'm frankly amazed that any of these characters function well enough to cause the amount of damage they do. And that's not even accounting for the damage they *intended* to do.

I'm caught in admiration for this novel and the series while also being a bit flabbergasted at the same time. It has good writing and it's always pretty entertaining, but I don't want it to always be about the mental damage. Even that which makes this unique can be overdone.

Still, it straddles the line and succeeds for the majority for me. :)

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