The thing which really rubbed me the wrong way about DoL (directly related to the idfiction aspect, I guess; Monette's id is a lot more into rape and rape-as-whump than mine) is that basically how explicit sex was was inversely correlated to both consensuality and homosexuality. Consensual gay sex? Fade to black. (Consensual gay kinky sex that actually went well? "Not relevant" to Felix's emotional arc and therefore cut entirely). Felix being raped by men? Most explicit sex in the books. (I was also bothered by the combo of endless Felix whump + the way he was set up to be unsympathetic for not getting over his trauma faster in a way that heterosexual Mildmay wasn't).

It sounds like those aspects of Monette's interests are less likely to come up here, but I guess I generally came away from DoL feeling really uncomfortable about the subtext re: homosexuality, and it makes me a bit suspicious of her as an author, especially in combination with Companion to Wolves, one of the most infuriating books I've ever read.

(I didn't have a problem with the female characters in DoL as such, but with the semi-exception of Mehitabel, I feel like Monette is only interested in writing female characters until male characters show up, although this is more irritatingly obvious in some of her short fiction. As I said, I'm conflicted because I like her stylistically and often enjoy her worldbuilding, and DoL was certainly compulsive reading, but the social undertones tend to bother me.)