Meyer does an excellent job of making the reader understand Leavanna's background without making you sympathetic to her. It would have been easy to use the tragedies in her young life to justify her behaviors in the time of the main series. However her choices are still shown for what they are, decisions made out of selfishness and a means to gain power and revenge. This is a well written and tragic story that dovetails well with the other books of the series.