It's probably only fair for me to admit that I haven't read JL's latest work. I do have a strong impression-memory of some of her early stuff, if not of the specifics. And I remember it being full of banter that I wanted very much to like--I'm a documented fan of banter--but found repetitively overcute. I shouldn't make assumptions about JL's mind-set or work habits, but it's painful for me to recognize a talent that seems so obviously misused. There almost seems to be a working policy that prose is not bettered by smoothing, pruning and reconsidering, but by adding more and more of what there was too much of already.