#book about burnout book about grief book about weird wet towel bitches who won't leave you alone

[theriverbeyond]

Harrow the Ninth is really a book about what happens when you are the Best At Something your whole life and you sweat and bleed and sacrifice everything to earn your way to the place/position you've always dreamed of, but then when you do succeed it isn't as you expected. Not only does everyone you once admired turn out to be an awful person, but your abilities are no longer special. Your talent isn't enough. Your effort isn't enough. Your new peers have worked just as hard as you have and know just as much as you do, but more than that: they seem suddenly better, faster, more capable, all while you flounder in the shallow end of the pool as the abilities you spent your whole life honing abandon you in your time of need. Humiliation becomes your constant companion as you sweat and bleed and try anyway, but what once netted you endless success and acolades is now barely enough to survive.

And then, of course, there is The Skull