Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

189 reviews

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

ladythana's review against another edition

mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Gaslighting, Dementia, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Toxic friendship, Death of parent, Gun violence, Self harm, Abandonment, Bullying, Dysphoria, Eating disorder, and Medical trauma

Minor: Body shaming and Colonisation

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

skudiklier's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious tense

• 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

4.75

Oh my god this book. I have no idea what to say about it. I don't know how else to say this but reading it made me feel like I was going crazy. I'm so glad I was reading this well after it came out and I could look up just enough people talking about it online so that I could know I was actually having the intended experience and not wildly misunderstanding something. For a book that made me feel like I had no idea what was happening, I loved it. I definitely want to read the next one. It made me scream at the people who recommended it to me. It has such a good payoff after all the confusion and disorientation. I wish all books were this devastating and this satisfying and this funny.

mild spoilers

NONE HOUSES LEFT GRIEF???? what the fuck.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Death, Gore, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Violence, Grief, and Murder

Moderate: Mental illness, Cursing, Alcohol, Cannibalism, and Death of parent

Minor: Child death and Sexual content

grace_b_3's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious slow-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

3.0

I loved Gideon the Ninth and thus was so excited for the sequel. Harrow ended up being more of a slog than I expected, but it really stuck the landing. About midway through Harrow, I wasn’t sure if I was going to finish it, much less read the third book, but the last act pulled right back into this world and these characters. 

One of the things I liked the least in this book is that most of the chapters are told in 2nd person.

While this choice is eventually explained when Gideon comes back and starts some 1st person chapters, it was still rather grating to read through. I also heard that the 2nd person narration choice was made to emphasize that Harrow is an unreliable narrator, but there is so much else going on to communicate that so it felt so unnecessary until the last act with the Gideon reveal and then that choice clicked into place for me. Didn’t quite make up for the rest of the book though.

Also,

I didn’t love the Gideon potentially being in love with Harrow thing. I have never read their relationship as being romantic and felt like that romantic angle to their relationship was never really developed? I much preferred the Ianthe/Harrow pairing in this book—in a romantic sense. I love the friendship between Harrow and Gideon and how that builds over the first book.

I’d reccomend this series if you like dense, twisty fiction with a gothic vibe. Just don’t go into Harrow expecting it to be similar to Gideon.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Murder, Torture, Gore, and Blood

Moderate: Suicide

raybudbury's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious sad fast-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

5.0

This was crazy. Like tamsyn Muir didn’t have to go so hard but she did. How did she write first/second/third person all in one book and I was eating it up. Amazing.

I read this on audio and made lil notes for myself while I was at work so I’ll put those under this first spoiler tag

 
- severely gay in a weird way
- soup making turned deadly
- “jaded tones of a fagged-out socialite” harrow describing ianthe talking 😭
- necro ménage 👁️
- coffee shop au but also a lobotomy
- the girls are fighting
- “she wants the D and the D stands for the Dead”
- reading a threatening letter but the other person reading it sees a middle school ‘S’. Had me dead

JSSKSK. Really loving this series actually but I loved this one better because it kind of flips expectations and I also love a good soap opera situation

gideon’s parental situation JAJSKSOSSKDNDNSNDND LMAOOOO

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Death, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Gore, Grief, Mental illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Violence

Moderate: Cannibalism

bebidocrimes's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.5

While it's a little heavy handed on the dialogue explanations of the magic system and world building, I did have an easier time keeping track of the secondary characters. I agree that just accepting that you are going to be confused helps navigate the disjointed timelines. (Some fandom osmosis also helped me keep up, too tbh) I am fascinated by a depiction of god as a flawed and selfish individual who probably shouldn't actually be worshiped. I'm going to need to sit with this one for a while.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Gun violence, Body horror, Gore, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Mental illness, Murder, Blood, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Drug use, Cursing, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Colonisation, and Abandonment

notthatkat's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.5

This book is bonkers, but in some really good ways. As I was warned, a large chunk of the book is confusing and doesn’t line up with events that happened in Gideon. Harrow does say several times that she is insane. Readers should take her at her word. In the latter part of the book, things become clear with payoffs for the things that don’t make sense. In addition to continuing the overarching plot started in Gideon, Harrow is a poignant explanation of mental illness and grief. Some questions left hanging in Gideon are answered and even more are raised.  Overall I thought it very good and look forward to continuing with Nona. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Blood, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Death, Body horror, Genocide, Gore, and Vomit

Moderate: Schizophrenia/Psychosis

smoldragon22's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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: Mental illness

Moderate: Death, Blood, Medical content, and Murder

Medical content is the best I can do for the general bones/gore present. Its not worse than the first book so if you got through that you'll be fine here.

monadocookie's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

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

Minor: Vomit