Inland

I wanted to love Inland. It had so much going for it: strong female protagonist fighting the establishment and the patriarchy and the environment, camels conscripted to war!, the daughter of a mesmerist who holds weekly seances and a (possible) beast stalking them all! It should have been gold! Instead, I often found myself bored to tears and I lost patience with it. The writing is gorgeous but not absorbing, the story is pretty strong but not thrilling and these little sparks of amazing would happen and I'd expect “oh, now something cool is going to happen!” just kind-of pssssshhhhttted.
A non-spoilery example: the grandmother, confined to a wheelchair and paralyzed is suspected of moving when Nora's not looking. Surely that would become important at some point, right? Not really.
I think I just wanted more magical realism and it did not deliver. I wanted the novel to “go there”. It does not.
YMMV. I should have gone in with lower expectations.