Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

45 reviews

turn_around_sammy's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious 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

I love this book. Dark, emotional, necromantic space opera set over 10,000 years into the future- but manages to throw in a “none pizza left beef” joke. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Body horror, Blood, Death, Grief, and Murder

Moderate: Medical trauma

azureandroid's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

Really good but it is from a second person perspective on the beginning which can be HARD to get a grip on

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Body horror, Mental illness, Death, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, and Self harm

Moderate: Child death, Eating disorder, Toxic friendship, Gore, and Murder

Minor: Cursing, Vomit, Blood, Sexual content, and Dysphoria

Harrow is traumatised, she is really her own warning at this point

iane_reads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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: Blood, Gun violence, Hate crime, Kidnapping, Medical content, Mental illness, Murder, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Alcohol, Classism, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Suicidal thoughts, Emotional abuse, Violence, Self harm, Stalking, Torture, Body horror, Dysphoria, Gaslighting, Gore, Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, Bullying, Cursing, and Death

Moderate: Eating disorder, Genocide, Ableism, Sexual content, Child abuse, Suicide, Cannibalism, Child death, and Confinement

Minor: Sexual harassment, Trafficking, Chronic illness, Colonisation, Miscarriage, Cancer, Terminal illness, Animal death, Dementia, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Acephobia/Arophobia, Death of parent, Medical trauma, Pregnancy, and War

therealratking's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious tense slow-paced

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

5.0

"Unexpectedly, this did not kill her; and what did not kill her made her curious."
Whats the book about?
After the disaster that was Canaan House, the newly born Lyctor Harrowhark the Ninth is struggling to survive on the Emperor's ship. Not only is her brain fucked up but someone is trying to kill her. To add to all this misery, the resection beasts are closing in and Harrows necromancy has decided to stop working as it should.
Whats my opinion?
This book made me ball my eyes out, a rare feat that only the Locked Tomb series had managed to do. The second person POV, while confusing at first ends up making so much sense that my jaw dropped. I loved following Harrow's messed up daily life and the dark humor introduced in Gideon the Ninth follows through. Overall i loved this book and if you loved the first book, you'll love this one even more.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Murder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Cannibalism

shadereads's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense slow-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Body horror, Blood, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Gore

Moderate: Death of parent, Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, and Vomit

Minor: War, Medical content, Genocide, Colonisation, and Medical trauma

ivan_tw's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-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

4.0

While "Gideon" was a fun and funny genre experiment, a sci-fi haunted house murder mystery, "Harrow" takes that basic setting and tweaks pretty much everything about it. It operates, at least at first, as a fun-house mirror version of "Gideon", where everything seems similar but just different enough to make you wonder what's going on. It plays with memory a lot, both for the characters and for you as a reader. And in those experiments, it shows just how strong of a writer Muir really is. I'm looking forward to Book 3.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Death, and Self harm

Moderate: Bullying, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Murder

shelbymarie314's review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective slow-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

Moderate: Medical trauma, Body horror, Violence, Murder, Stalking, and Death

Minor: Cannibalism

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

devirtualized's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense 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

This is a very special book. And by book I mean long, mind-bending, utterly beautiful poem - or love letter - or both.

I feel like I don’t have high enough praise to give this but I will try. This prose is otherworldly. It is a surreal and devastating painting of grief and it is a derisive remark and a dad joke all in one. There really is not a single word that goes to waste. 

Harrow is an intriguing & exquisite character, warped by pain and unanswered questions, but still resolute and sincere. She’s sharply clever but also, endearingly, dumb-as-rocks and a little or a lot pathetic because of it. And she’s kind of impossible not to love. Like practically everyone Harrow meets, I too have a strong case of Nonagesimitis. 

The character dynamics are unbelievably tantalizing, incomprehensible (complimentary) and endlessly entertaining - and much the same can be said for the plot. 

I think I probably have a lot more to say. I have many questions too but I really wouldn’t have it any other way. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Violence, Blood, Cursing, Death, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, and Vomit

Moderate: Gun violence, Child death, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Death of parent, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Cancer, and Suicide

elizmoe's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense 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

5.0

Tamsyn Muir, meet me in the pit. So I can give you a <i>hug</i>. And then sue you for emotional damages. 

i'm screaming, i'm crying, i'm throwing up even more than harrow in the first 5 chapters of this book. gideon and harrow have forever altered my brain chemistry. i understand that these books are perhaps not for everyone, but they are definitely for <i>me</i>; every reality-bending, viscerally disgusting, brow-furrowing-inducing moment of this stupid lesbian necromancer and her stupider lesbian cavalier were for me, and i am wretchedly grateful. 

too early to say for sure, but this book may have ruined me for other books? we'll see, but i have a bad feeling that anything else i will read that contains any of the following:

necromancy
swordplay
space
nonlinear storytelling
unreliable narrator(s)
enemy lesbians

will just leave me wondering why that book can't be her*. 

*the locked tomb series

also the payoff of this book is CRAZY. if you are like 20% through and not seeing the vision and considering DNF, i urge you to carry on even if the 500 pages feel daunting. you won't believe your eyes when shit starts coming together, because so many pieces do. even pieces that don't, i am confident will be explained in the next two books, as there were many many setups from book 1 that made for some incredible reveals in this book. 

i have so much more to say about this book but most of it is yelling. even the occasional ill-advised meme inserts couldn't mar this book for me! and that's pretty insane!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Gun violence, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Blood, Violence, Medical trauma, Genocide, Cursing, Child death, Body horror, Death, War, Torture, Gore, Vomit, Mental illness, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Stalking, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Alcohol, Toxic relationship, and Suicide