Great reviews -- thank you for sharing! I LOVED Precious Bane when I first read it -- a novel the centred disability as a theme, and one that centralised acceptance, meant the world to me. I think if I read it for the first time as an adult instead of a teenager, I would have similar criticisms, but I'm still very fond of it. I think it's actually Mary Webb's LEAST melodramatic novel, which is certainly saying something.