Reviews tagging 'Suicide attempt'

Ich bin Harrow by Tamsyn Muir

39 reviews

steph_weigle's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Gaslighting, Grief, Gun violence, Sexual content, Body horror, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Pregnancy, Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, Gore, Eating disorder, Infertility, Medical content, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic friendship, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Self harm, Confinement, Bullying, Cancer, Cannibalism, Chronic illness, Cursing, Violence, Vomit, and War

Minor: Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Child death, Colonisation, Suicide attempt, Infertility, Animal death, Genocide, and Suicide

lunarlibra's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Love love love. I read through the night so I'm not very coherent rn but as much as I loved GtN, I LOVED HtN!! I plan to reread both before moving on to NtN and will update my review with more coherent thoughts, but one thing: I deeply appreciated the depiction of hallucination and different perceived realities, especially after reading the acknowledgements. Anyway. God what a great book

i love killing(???) God in fiction, even if it doesn't keep

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Murder, Blood, Body horror, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Gaslighting, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Gun violence, Mental illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicidal thoughts, War, Genocide, Grief, Murder, Eating disorder, Body horror, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, and Alcohol

Minor: Body shaming, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Murder, Racism, Violence, Grief, Suicide attempt, Gun violence, Medical content, Mental illness, Cancer, Gaslighting, and Child death

shottel's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Like Gideon the Ninth, the book-cover reviews and summaries don’t do it justice. Harrow the Ninth is a fantastic, funny, unique, genre-blurring novel whose worldbuilding and mystery-oriented storytelling makes it worthy of reading on their own. To an even greater degree, it is a poignant picture of psychosis and grief. I was not expecting to see in such detail a broken mind, agonized by self-doubt and the mistrust of others, and the crushing weight of immense loss.

Outside of the deep themes of regret, loss, absence, grief, and psychosis, there is much to say positively. Harrow manages to pull off pop culture references and memes humorously, without making me want to throw the book across the room. (Minimally spoiling example: A subtle joke invoking none pizza left beef.) This, combined with a tamer but still present version of the sense of humor that made Gideon distinctive makes for an enjoyable time. It doesn’t lag so hard in the first half like Gideon does (although I do feel it could’ve likely been shortened a good 50-100 pages). The ending was exciting, the payoff for working through over 400 pages of confusion (albeit a well-written 400 pages) deeply worth it. My only gripe is that, without spoiling anything, the last 5 or so pages are a bit confusing and sad in a way I don’t think fits, but this doesn’t harm it enough for me to say the ending was anything but excellent.

Overall, I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who has read Gideon the Ninth and would be interested in a good mystery or an evocative portrait of disturbed mental faculties.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Body horror, Gore, Mental illness, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Violence, Toxic friendship, Murder, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Vomit, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Alcohol, and Self harm

Minor: Pregnancy, Dementia, Sexual assault, and Sexual content

jodean's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Cursing, Abandonment, Violence, Toxic friendship, Murder, Grief, Body horror, Blood, Gore, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, and Colonisation

Moderate: Child death, Mental illness, and Alcohol

Minor: Suicide attempt, Sexual content, Pregnancy, Terminal illness, Suicide, Death of parent, and War

alisonvh's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I found this book a little harder to follow than the first. It might be because I listened to it on audio rather than reading it. Or it could be because Harrow decided to fuck with the timeline of the first book. I still enjoyed it, especially towards the end, and will definitely be reading the sequel.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Toxic relationship, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Alcohol, Murder, Child death, and Suicide

poison_frogs's review against another edition

challenging funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Death of parent

Minor: Suicide attempt

provo's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I knew before reading this that the plot would not make sense until 2/3 trough, so I was prepared for the confusion.
The finale was something else and bumped my rating from 4 to 5 stars, incredibly satisfying to unwind all the what-the-fuck-is-going-on.
But: check trigger warnings before reading, like there’s a lot of really graphic stuff.
Also maybe not a book anyone should read during an active psychotic episode (this is not a joke).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Alcohol, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Violence, Chronic illness, Gaslighting, Genocide, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Vomit, War, Death of parent, Body horror, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Mental illness, Murder, Abandonment, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Child death, Gun violence, and Suicide attempt

possibilityleft's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Toxic friendship, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Abandonment, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Genocide, Gore, Stalking, War, Vomit, Animal death, Blood, Child death, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, Dementia, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Mental illness, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Grief, Gun violence, Miscarriage, Murder, Suicide, Torture, and Violence

belladonnashrike's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

so I think reading this sequel has summed up my feelings on how muir writes. she comes off as an amateur writer - whether that’s true or not, I have no idea, but that’s the root of all my critiques. I’m not a fan of the humor in this series, but even more so, all the characters (except for Harrow) have the same sense of humor, even when you would expect them not to, which sort of cheapens the dialogue and their individual characterization. the one (main) character that I feel does not share this quality is Harrowhark, who is written as the inverse of Gideon, so of course she won’t have the Gideon-like humor. I think Harrow is the best written character in the series and she is certainly my favorite which is why I think I enjoyed this book way more than the first. despite that, the fact that she is basically a Gideon foil feels a little lazy especially when you look at the dialogue. I love Harrow but I wish her traits and personality was independent of Gideon. I enjoyed Harrow’s perspective

but once it shifted back to Gideon’s (which I KNEW was going to happen… I hated the second person format but then realized very early on that Gideon was most likely not actually dead and she was speaking for Harrow) perspective, I felt mildly annoyed. I don’t dislike Gideon at all, but I’d simply rather not read things from her perspective, especially in first person. she’s fine as a side character! I just really do not like her sense of humor and again, it cheapens the story for me. especially when God - her father - said that very ridiculous, unnecessary dad joke upon meeting her. I legitimately rolled my eyes and sighed. I just can’t escape this sense of humor even when Harrow is leading the book!

much more. she is a very interesting character and I do have a lot of love for her. the worldbuilding got SO much better in this book, but it’s not perfect. some things are still left unsaid or as loose threads (which I feel is not a part of the mystery and definitely attributed to what I imagine is inexperienced writing). I am still invested in the story despite my critiques (I just find the concept so fascinating - I desperately wish that the execution was better) so I’ll be continuing on with the series. I hope Harrow is in these next couple books because I do adore her and would certainly miss her if she was absent from the storyline. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Gore, Blood, Gun violence, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Abandonment, Suicide attempt, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicide, and Vomit

nonsense's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Violence, Body horror, Mental illness, and Death

Minor: Suicide and Suicide attempt