Deirdre explaining her life to illustrate how much she was sacrificing to save the world and then her going through with it later in the book was good.
Can’t really think of other stuff as it’s been a few years now. The writing with Dresden’s daughter was just so saccharine and heavy handed, I didn’t like any of those scenes. They stood out as the author trying way too hard to get an emotional reaction.
Oh, I remember reacting to Dresden’s hand being maimed. At the time, I thought it was pretty bold to maim and partially debilitate the main character in what is, ostensibly, an action adventure series. It turned out the wound wasn’t really an issue in later books, but, at the time, I was intrigued as it should have changed a lot of the action stuff.