Edit the second: To paraphrase someone else: This story is exhausting for this reason: you've piled so much trouble on top of trouble that it becomes hard to get invested, because any progress will be undone in a matter of chapters.
Yes. Same issue as with Vivaldi's Muse, in how Annina would make a little progress in being more socially aware, and then immediately take two giant leaps backwards. Here it's the same thing with Williams, only with her being able to be happy.

Yay, more evidence that Kelly shouldn't have been writing about slavery with this book. As for the "music comes from suffering" bit... well, that explains a lot about this book, and the fact it turned out so dully is a good indication that that's utter nonsense.
She opened the dang book with a quote from Williams about her misery, so I guess we should have been more prepared for what the tone of the book would be.
(...This actually reminds me of Vincent van Gogh, an artist who struggled with mental illness and who also gets some of this.)
Yes, and the part about van Gogh that a lot of people like to conveniently overlook is that he only really did any art at all when his illness was getting the treatment it needed. I'm pretty sure we have entire quotes from him about this, too.

I'm honestly wondering if she meant 'mopey' and typoed it.

I'm a bit less hangry now, at least!