Conditions of Will by Jessa Hastings

A father’s secret past unlocks his daughter’s future

Fun and Shadows

My favorite song at Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show was Tití Me Preguntó. It’s upbeat and fast. Bad Bunny’s aunt asks if he has a lot of girlfriends. He’s almost laughing in response, “today I have one, tomorrow another.” He lists their names Mambo No. 5 style. He takes these girls out as “VIP” and it sounds like a great time.

Audio clips of his aunt telling him to behave cut in. Finally, we hear her full dressing down.

Then, the song turns.

The beat gets techno and dark. He sings, “I would like to fall in love, but I can’t.” He’s crying out.

Then it gets eerie, almost like spooky high winds, and Bad Bunny is scoffing in disgust “Nah, sorry, yo no confío, yo no confío, nah, ni en mí mismo confío” — “Sorry, I don’t trust anyone, not even myself.”

Partying gets boring to the point of vapidity and self-hatred. He wants a new girl, a new girl, a new girl, a new girl. Something in him is empty and unsatisfied. He’s trying to fill it with emptiness and dissatisfaction. Meanwhile the girls just want his money. He’s bitter, “sorry I’m like this, I don’t know why I’m like this.”

There are thousands of party songs that start upbeat and stay that way: I Got a Feeling, Just Dance. These are great songs! But the story is flat. Partying to the max is fun. And that’s it. There is no downside.

Titi Me Pregunto stands out because Bad Bunny reveals the shadow side. The darkness behind the craze.

This shadow side is everything in art. It’s the difference between boring and relatable.

Jessa Hastings’ 2024 novel Conditions of Will plays with this shadow side. Some characters are given a shadow—and some are just dismissed as bad.

Georgia Peach

In Conditions of Will, our narrator Georgia flies home to South Carolina after her father passes away. There are surprises in his will and his past.

Georgia’s view of her family is black and white. Younger brother, new boyfriend, Georgia: good. But misunderstood. They have shadow sides. Mom, sister, older brother: bad. Just bad.

This black-and-white perspective is the novel’s story. Georgia learns not everyone is so simple. The start of this change—and the start of healing for Georgia—comes from an unexpected love story.

Try to Feel My Pain

After Georgia flies home for the funeral, we find out many awful events she experienced as a teen. Hastings writes these events in a “look-at-my-pain” way that made me a little uncomfortable.

Let me give you an example.

When Georgia was 14, her parents found her getting sexually assaulted by an older boy in her bedroom. That’s awful. Then, her mother forced her into an ice cold shower with her clothes on. Georgia soobbed and her mother held her under the water for 30 minutes. Then, Georgia had to sleep on a naked mattress, no blankets or pillows, in those soaking wet clothes, with the bedroom windows open to the wind. The next morning, they shipped her out of the country without explanation.

I have read many books about assault and bad things. I have no problem reading about that.

But this is the first book I’ve read that writes traumatic events…cartoon-ish? Her family (and her many other perpetrators) are so bad, and just bad, I had trouble relating to them.

To put it bluntly: they’re flat characters.

And flat characters are boring.

Double Trouble

Georgia experienced a lot of pain as a kid. That pain gave her a rough exterior.

Georgia can be downright nasty. She name-calls, fights, storms off, insults people. Which is fine. She’s 26. I get it.

Hastings writes two characters who are nasty to each other: Georgia and big sister Marianne. Georgia is framed as actually a good person, but only acts nasty because she was hurt in the past. She gets a shadow side.

But Marianne is just evil. A “narcissist with sociopathic tendencies,” to be exact. And that’s it.

I don’t expect Georgia to extend empathy to her older sister who is mean to her. Georgia is young, recovering from abuse, and starving from lack of empathy. She’s not in that place right now.

But author Jessa Hastings!

Perhaps…and I hate to be the one to beg the question here…….Marianne, just like Georgia, lived through some tough events that made her nasty, too? Maybe her bad behavior comes from pain, too?

Reading about Marianne was like listening to Titi Me Pregunto without the turn at the end. Still a great song. But I found myself craving depth. WHY is she so mean?

Olive Branches

When we’re in pain, it’s easy to use our hurt feelings as an excuse for our own bad behavior. What’s hard is to look at the person who hurt us, and wonder if she’s in pain, too. And then offer patience, understanding, warmth—or take our space.

If we will never reach a place of repair with someone, is it okay to scream at her? Get into physical fights? Even if she’s the one who started it?

Hastings is understanding of Georgia. But Hastings shuts out Marianne (and other “bad” characters like her), no questions asked. Just like how Georgia was shut out in the first place.

Hastings inflicts on other characters the same injury her main character suffers from—dismissal.

If You Can’t Handle the Heat

If I interpret this book in the most forgiving light for Hastings, I would say Georgia is so traumatized, this binary perspective is all Georgia is capable of right now. Any perspective other than “those people are evil” infringes on the territory of “my pain isn’t real.” And when you’re still reeling from abuse, hearing your pain isn’t real can be intolerable.

Calling Georgia’s perpetrators bad is easier than seeing them as complex people who didn’t intend to hurt her, but somehow got to that place. That perspective takes more than maturity. It takes freedom.

Georgia’s parents and perpetrators don’t literally have power over her anymore. But the story of abuse does. Georgia is locked under the story of “my family doesn’t care about me.” Every event is filtered through that conclusion—that her family members are monsters who don’t give a fuck about her.

The way for Georgia to free herself of that story isn’t to scream at her family. It’s not even to have sex with an amazing new boyfriend!

It’s to take agency over her life.

Uncertainty

Enter the love story.

And it’s not between Georgia and her new boyfriend Sam. Sam is another flat character—he just exists to love (and fuck) Georgia. He’s great, but he doesn’t change her.

The real love story—the relationship that plants a seed of change in Georgia—comes from her father’s late lover, a man named Alexis.

(If I didn’t mention, the big secret in the will was that the father was secretly gay, and had a secret boyfriend for 30+ years.)

Hastings is not the only author who writes about atrocious things.

The content of this book reminded me of We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates. In that book, daughter X is raped in high school and it changes the family forever. Just like Georgia’s family.

Like Georgia, X is sent to live away. But Oates writes each character dynamically. Nobody—not even the guy who rapes her—is wholly bad. People have motives. They want things—status, pleasure, respect, love. The drive to get those things—not innate evilness—leads characters into abhorrent behavior. This is so much more entertaining to read that “he was evil.”

Also, I think it’s how life is! Oates writing not so simplistic—and neither are real life people!

Georgia feels hurt inside and doesn’t know what to do with that pain. She might be free of her parents’ control, but she is not free of the story. That past abuse is the sun around which she revolves. Her family might have put the pain inside her. But whether right or wrong, fair or unfair, it’s Georgia’s responsibility to work through that pain. We are all responsible for our behavior today, no matter what happened to us yesterday. Past abuse is not an excuse.

But that’s a super tough road to walk! Much easier to call our sister a cunt, dismiss her as deranged, and blame her for everything. Because that way….we don’t have to do any of the hard work necessary to feel better again.

On the surface, this book is about Georgia uncovering a big secret in her father’s will. But really, I think this is about Georgia learning the world isn’t good and bad. Everyone is everything. We’re complex, we all feel pain. Georgia and her sister fight like cats and dogs. Like 25% of the book is Georgia and her sister scream-calling each other names. They get into a physical fight. Georgia excuses her hurtful behavior with her past. Her sister hurt her, so it is okay for Georgia to hurt her sister now. For years, Georgia kept traumatic events hidden, and these hidden events were the reason for her nasty behavior to family members.

But not once does Georgia consider whether or not her sister is hiding something painful. If Georgia’s nastiness comes from internal pain, what are we to assume Marianne’s comes from? Georgia's misunderstood, but Marianne is just evil? Marianne is consistently described as a “narcissist with sociopathic tendencies.” And that’s it! No depth.

I really wish Hastings took the lesson Georgia learned from Alexis—that people are complex—and extended it to her older sister. Not even for altruistic reasons. At the very least, for entertainment. Having a through-and-through villain is boring. Because, okay, she’s a narcissist…now what?

Georgia is desperate for her family to extend empathy to her, but doesn’t think her sister deserves empathy. As a reader, I found that lack of awareness and hypocricy frustrating.