Just One Damned Thing After Another

DNF at 27%

Real, actual quote:
The courtyard was full of smoke, from which ghostly figures appeared and disappeared like ghosts.

I literally would not let my 10-year-old turn in a story with that sentence in it.

The main character is pretty much a Mary Sue - pretty, unusual hair color, insufferably brilliant at everything, vaguely Tragic Backstory, etc. etc.

Most characters are given names and actions, with no descriptions or characterization, never mind actual character development. The deepest characterizations are as follows: red-headed, awesome at everything, and emotionally reserved; red-headed and mean; blue-eyed; tall; tall and blonde.

Nothing about the time travel program makes any sense. What it's for, how it's funded, how it's staffed, etc.

There's also what appears to be a central tension - Historians can observe, but if they try to interfere, History will protect itself by killing the fuck out of them. This gets triggered by the mere interest the protagonist shows when a man gets followed by some thugs - she barely takes a step toward them, and a rock literally falls out of the sky to try to squash her.

And yet! In the next chapter, she spends weeks doing medical triage in WWI, deciding who will live and who will die. (Needless to say, she is FANTASTIC at it.) And her senior colleague gets all butthurt at their companion because he laid low and tried not to change things.

That was where I gave up. The author is a bad writer and isn't even trying at internal logic for her world here. Time to go read some more Connie Willis to see this done much better!