For me, the most frustrating part was the bit a couple books in when the narrative sort of flirts with giving Barclay some depth... and then of course she was lying about the depth, and one of Max's friends reassures her that no, Barclay was exactly as flatly horrible as she always seemed! Argh.

(I also never really forgave Max's love interest for his asshole move later in the book; she gets a blatantly only-there-for-one-book love interest later and I liked him so much more, despite the obvious relationship hurdle of him being medieval. And then the story went out of its way to kill him off at the end of the book, even though Max had already gone back to whatsisname! Again, argh.)

... I also disliked what it did with Jack the Ripper, but I never like Jack the Ripper plots anyway.