The prominent secondary female characters in the series Mercy gets along with/has meaningful relationships with: The prominent secondary male characters in the series Mercy gets along with/has meaningful relationships with: Adam, Samuel, Bran, Ben, Warren, Kyle, Tad, Zee, Coyote, Gary, Tony, and Darryl. A quick summary of Mercy's relationship with male/female characters:

Would it really be that unrealistic to let her have a few decent female friends that she regularly interacts with? Whatever the reason, it's irritating and disheartening to read a heroine who only really comes in contact with vile women. Maybe, they're just written that way to make Mercy stand out and seem more heroine-like. I'm not impressed with the portrayal of women in the series in general, 90% of the ones that have significant roles are nasty and unpleasant.

If I'm meant to believe that Mercy has strong, meaningful relationships with other female characters (bar Adam's daughter) then it needs to be shown and time needs to spent on them. Apparently, relationships only matter and are only worth taking about if it involves a male. Whereas, Mercy can't stop banging on about Bran, Coyote and all the other wonderful male influences in her life. Yes, Mercy gets on with her mum and half-sisters… But she rarely mentions them and doesn't seem particularly close to them, all of them are more or less non-characters. All these books make out like women are all bitches apart from a few speshul snowflakes.

Which is bullshit, in real life women usually spend more time with supportive, nice women rather than all the not so nice women. Sure, there are a lot of awful women but there are just as much men who are awful… But like most YA/UF/PNR books heroines tend to spend most of their time with complete fucking cows. It just wasn't believable to me that Mercy was constantly surrounded by mean, jealous, petty women, I found it rather unrealistic. I couldn't stand all the bitchy female characters, literally every secondary female character hated Mercy, the only ones that didn't were Adam's daughter and Honey (to a certain extent).

On top of that, Mercy has to deal with the fact that Christy wants Adam back. Also, Mercy has to look for her sort of dad (Coyote) so he can give her back a magical walking stick that the fae are demanding. What's what: Adam's ex wife (Christy) has a crazy psycho stalker after her, Mercy and co have to protect her. I really didn't like this installment, mainly because I pretty much hated every character (especially Adam and Christy)… The only ones I didn't mind were Jesse, Tad, and Warren… Even Mercy irritated me with her overly understanding Mary Sue attitude towards Adam and his ex.

Mercy thompson book 8