I've finally finished the Ruby Redfort series after reading the first few when I was 10 (I am now 20), and whilst the last book was awesome GOD I wish it had been given the space of 2 books. Child's been great at building suspense and tension in the former books but I feel that she was given far too little space to tie up so many loose ends in BAYD to the point that we lose out on the little quirks of interactions between characters, Ruby's thoughts, etc. that make the books so enjoyable. I barely recognised Clancy and Hitch at the end because their interactions with Ruby had no detail, completely flattening the impact of Hitch's return and Ruby's conflict with her trust of Hitch. Hitch was acting like a cardboard cutout for like the entire book, just used to carry plot, because there seemed to be a lack of space for the usual warm and wacky interactions they usually had.
On a positive note, the lack of Clancy's usual involvement aside from as a plot device to provide Ruby with 'hunches' made me suspect that somehow HE could be the impostor, which raised the suspense. But once I realised he wasn't, the lack of the usual dialogue with clancy felt like he was being neglected. I guess the redirection of focus from he and Hitch really stood out to me, and whilst that redirection gave us amazing development of LB and BB (and Ruby herself), I was left with so many questions about Ruby's relationships with these people immediately after the events of the series, which could have been rectified with some slower pacing.
In short: let Ruby and Hitch show emotion please I BEG.
Also: what was with the 3 books of talking about Ruby's tiredness and trauma and never showing a properly emotional moment where this is addressed?? It felt like a build up to nothing. Ruby's an emotionally withdrawn kid but she's not a robot cmon.
