Normally, when a protagonist is written as entitled, whiny, lazy, and reactive, it is a vehicle to show the character’s growth. Not here. Ash spends the book whining, complaining, and allowing events to control him. He makes no effort to find out how to shed his mortal skin, just sits around moaning that he doesn’t know how. The narrator compounds Ash’s unlike-ability by reading the entire story in a monotone patrician drawl. He conveys the same emotion whether recounting a fight for Ash‘s life or a shopping list. Moreover, his molars-clenched, louche cadence—I suppose intended to sound “posh”— doesn’t match Ash’s character, regardless of whether it’s Ash’s whining or his smutty exclamations.