Nona the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir

It took me forever to read this book. Superlative and plot overload. There is so much going on, and I was able to relate some of it back to the earlier books but the whole thing just never did resolve and make sense to me. Could have to do with it being kind of an impromptu book wedged in between Harrow and Alecto. Nona is kind of a cute character, but I was really distracted trying to relate what she was narrating, and what the others were doing, back to Gideon and Harrow. Gideon Nav appears but is really someone else (happens a lot) and Harrow might be appearing? "Dead" is a term of art, dead people walk around and act pretty much like anyone else (except in John's interludes, which are the most interesting part of the book since they give it a little structure)(are we on Earth for this one?), and the word and idea are used so much, with so many different kinds of fairly animate people, that the word loses its meaning.

Layered snark also loses its effect with repeated use. Again, the other books push the line in interesting ways, but this one just goes over.

There are complex plots and there are confusing ones, and it's a fine line an author has to walk to write a book like this. The other two in the series just barely pulled it off for me, and this one just didn't.

My Goodreads Review

Harrow the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir

Well, I finished it. Took a very long time, relatively, and I guess I am glad I did. Most of the book is both confusing and brutal. It's not just the second person perspective. The reveal on why it is written that way is actually pretty cool and helped make sense of some parts for me. But then it keeps going, and the perspectives all mush together. Also, the same characters go by a lot of different names with only the barest connection to bring them together.

All the emotions in the book are awful, and described as hyperbolically as possible, with relief being the only tiny respite. And it's not enough. There's a lot of "You're wrong, and impossibly stupid" "No, YOU'RE wrong, and impossibly stupid". Back and forth. With all this going on it's really hard to pick out how the plot is driven--I sort of think I figured out that Resurrection Beasts are a consequence of some actions the Emperor undertook.

There's some good fight scenes toward the end that get the blood going, but the subsequent reveal is more of the same--confusing, "everything you know is wrong" "No, everything YOU know is wrong".

Hard to say if I'm going to read the last one in the series. I'll have to hear that it's better.

My Goodreads Review

Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Like a lot of other folks, when I started this book I kind of struggled with it. The formal setup, combined with over-the-top frenemy rhetoric (which never lets up but makes more sense later) and some unfortunate teen-speak made me sad. But it takes a lot to make me DNF once I start, so I persisted. And for me, I think it picked up before the 300 page mark. The author is very good at action scenes, and leads up to them in promising ways, so I began to get motivated. By the end I had trouble breaking off to go to bed, so all that is good. We get a great development of the relationship between Gideon and Harrow, and the ending is an excellent twist. You sort of see it coming, but *how* it's done is great.

There is some button pushing that is probably more natural than it sounded to me. Gideon presents as female, and describes both viewing hotness and being hot, so there is a lesbian element. But she has bulging muscles and a masculine approach to fighting, so sort of gender dysphoric too.  There is a brief mention that she is a person of color (a "ginger").

It pretty much reads as a YA novel--most of the characters are teens, and the action centers on them. It is highly structured (9 houses, the naming conventions) in the way YA fiction often is. I ran from that stuff as an actual teen, but am able to see the value in the plot more now. I am definitely glad I persisted and read the whole thing. Came away very entertained. Three stars is because I am a hard grader.



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