SF/F Spoiler Review - Lightless

Tonight's review was Lightless - the review starts with this tweet (click to get the whole thread):

SF/F Book Review time!: Tonight Lightless by @C_A_Higgs https://t.co/rtPELMCGYQ Short Review: 8 out of 10, Very good despite a slow middle

— garik16 (@garik16) July 19, 2016

Spoilers below:
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Lightless is a hard book to describe without spoiling, which is presumably why the book jacket blatantly spoils one twist - Mattie still being on the ship instead of in the escape pod - and describes the plot like it's going to be a hannibal lector esque story with Ivan and Althea (which is not at all what happens, as Althea is tempted but still only has two interactions with Ivan while he's in captivity).  Mind you, Mattie not being in the escape pod is so obvious it's kind of laughable as a twist, which is why the book doesn't even dwell too much on it once it's revealed (as Mattie had already escaped).

But the twists aren't my real issue with the book (the AI twist is also fairly obvious the moment the book teases the fake AI on the thieves' ship).  The issue is with the book's middle, which is basically Ida examining Ivan while Althea finds more and more issues with the ship, which Ida ignores.  The problem is Ida is just awful.  This is obviously intentional, but well the whole middle of the book focuses so much on her, which is just a lot of an awful character.  Now this whole section is redeemed as Ivan's revelations in the interrogation become all relevant once the reveal of Constance as the Mallt-y-Nos is made.  But even that's kind of annoying since it makes Ida RIGHT when you kind of want her to be wrong to be taken down a peg.

I guess she's sort of taken down a peg since her interrogations are what enabled Constance to make her move in the first place, and because of her death, but it's kind of awful for her to have been right when she's such an awful character.  Again the ending makes everything worth it, dark as it kind of is, and the book would've been interesting and worth it if that ending was all there is, but apparently we're getting two more books following the Ananke, so this should be exciting.