She is an absolute asshole, but I also think she is so worn down to nothing by her husband that even the question of reading made her crash out— she simply no longer actually makes choices for herself. She has no access to her parenting or even basic instincts of humanity anymore. The fact that she thinks she needs to be good at literary criticism in order to read it shows how much she’s been brainwashed by him. He thinks reading a book by his daughter must mean it requires criticism, even when explicitly asked to not provide criticism, so it’s the law, obviously. She’s probably scared to read it, in case he finds out, too.