I like to learn about characters by their actions and interactions with other people. I don’t like feeling I’m being lectured to. I want to hear other characters’ voices and not page after page of one character droning on about herself and other characters. There was way too much narrative in the excerpt I read. I’m getting a picture of Ellie, the narrator’s former lover, her husband , and the narrator herself only in a one sided way. Some readers may like this, but I find it tedious. We all react favorably and unfavorably to different types of writing, I guess.