Reviews tagging 'Chronic illness'

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

36 reviews

peach_pie's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Gore, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Cannibalism, Child death, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Colonisation, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Murder, Pregnancy, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Torture, Violence, Vomit, and War

kaylamoran's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense slow-paced

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

2.0

This book was so enormously disappointing to me.  I adored Gideon the Ninth, and this felt like an entirely different series.  I couldn't handle the pacing, I was so bored.  I hated the second person, even though in the end it all made sense.  And Harrow is just so much more boring than Gideon.  None of what made the first book special to me was present in book two.

And honestly, I just spent the entire book confused.  I still frankly have no idea what happened in this book and I couldn't summarize it if I tried.

I'll still continue the series.  I loved book one enough for that.  But this is without a doubt my biggest disappointment so far of 2021.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Murder, Self harm, Toxic friendship, Violence, Vomit, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Alcohol, Cannibalism, Chronic illness, Gaslighting, and Gun violence

hotaruhime's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective 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

Absolutely stunning novel. It's written in a completely different style than Gideon the Ninth so it can initially be difficult to get started. However, it immediately begins to weave a mystery connected to the previous book that kept me hooked through sheer frustration. It's lesbian necromancers in space; what's not to love?

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Bullying, Chronic illness, Death, Gore, Medical content, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Vomit, and Violence

daydreamermoonwalker's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious 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

5.0

Original review: 4/5 stars

The first half of the book was really confusing and kinda boring, but I kept reading because I love the characters and wanted to see what happened to them. I'm glad I did, because the second half of the book was excellent. It was fast paced and all the mysteries from the first half got answered. Another thing to note is that a good chunk of the book is written in 2nd person pov, which was an interesting experience. And it's very different in tone compared to Gideon the Ninth, which isn't a bad thing, just a bit jarring.

Updated review: 5/5 stars 

This books is *so* much better the 2nd time reading it. All the confusing aspects from the first read make more sense, but it's complex enough that you're still trying to figure out all the details and foreshadowing. The 2nd person POV is weird to get used to at first but god is it genius. This is one of those books that's so complex, interesting, and just plain funny that I'll be rereading it for years to come. Oh and I absolutely love Muir's writing style. Again it's kinda weird at first, but once I got into it it was fantastic. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Alcohol, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Death, Violence, Stalking, Vomit, Cursing, Gaslighting, Grief, Body horror, and Colonisation

Minor: Chronic illness, Sexual content, and War

ashyouwish's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Blood, Vomit, Self harm, Physical abuse, Murder, Mental illness, Medical trauma, Gun violence, Grief, Genocide, Cursing, Chronic illness, Confinement, Colonisation, Cannibalism, Cancer, and Alcohol

Moderate: Suicide

rowanbg's review against another edition

dark funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

3.5

I spoiled myself for this book and still had no idea what was going on half the time.
Okay but on a more serious note: this book is stylistically experimental, and the fact that it pulls it off most of the time is something that I do have to give it credit for. It would probably pull it off better if every other description wasn't a metaphor and if Muir had put down the thesaurus for half a second, but here we are. 
I will say that I'm an outlier in that the things that other people love are the things that I really don't. I think the memes will make the book age like milk-- dad jokes are eternal, but people in 10 years might not know about miette, or none pizza with left beef. I'm also not a fan of the Gideon/Harrow relationship. Spoilers for Gideon the Ninth-

I just don't believe that someone who has been abused and imprisoned her entire life would fall in faithful, self-sacrificial love with her jailer after seeing her improve after only a month

. And trust me, as a lesbian I am not quick to put down lesbians. There were a number of smaller things that I would like to see someone with more expertise than me talk about, mainly the portrayal of disability and race, because both of those felt weird. In the end, I'll probably read the final book in the trilogy to see how it resolves, but I'm not waiting for it with baited breath. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Death, Medical trauma, Medical content, Vomit, Violence, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Self harm, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Murder, Mental illness, Body horror, and Blood

Minor: Alcohol, Child death, and Chronic illness

brindlecat's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

4.0

Book two in the amazing Locked Tomb trilogy. I found this book a bit slower to get through than the first book in the series (which I've found fairly standard for the second book in a trilogy -- it also ended on a fairly definite cliffhanger, unfortunately), but I so enjoy the world and the characters that it wasn't much of a problem.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Blood, Chronic illness, Death, Gore, and Murder

bookcapybara's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious 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

4.5

I went into this book expecting more of the (very enjoyable) same that was given to us in the first book. 

This was not the case. 

If you don’t like being confused, I do not recommend this book. I spent a solid 70% of this book with very little idea of what was going on, and I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. I could not put this book down. I needed answers. And when the answers were delivered, I was not disappointed. 

The only thing keeping me from rating this 5 stars is that, like the first book, I feel like the tone of several key scenes was undermined by humour. 

I will now eagerly await the release of the third book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Death, Blood, Violence, Gun violence, Mental illness, Grief, Vomit, Murder, Medical content, and Chronic illness

ha1yan's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious fast-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 book was such an amazing follow-up to Gideon the Ninth. We've got double the millennial meme references (none House left grief!?), even more terrifying space necromancy, and DRAMA. It has one of the weirdest perspectives and plots I've ever read and I LOVED IT. Harrow the Ninth is the ONLY way bury your gays should be used in media, actually.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Gun violence, Medical content, Mental illness, Murder, Self harm, Suicide, Violence, and Vomit

Moderate: Chronic illness, Grief, and Terminal illness

Minor: Ableism and Genocide

Hallucinations, manipulation and gaslighting, unreality

marioncromb's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

It being roughly a year since i'd read Gideon, so starting this book had me even more confused and doubting my memories than i think the author intended, but once i got that that /was/ the point i was fully on board, brain racing to try and unpick the mystery before Muir reveals it to us slowly, masterfully, thread by thread. The humour is not quite the same as in Gideon but is still very much there. I think this will be the best book i read this year, its only flaw being perhaps it doesn't end in an as self-contained a way as Gideon - its going to be a tough wait for Alecto, but i definitely want to reread both Gideon and Harrow in that time with new understanding & to spot all the clues i missed first time round!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Death, Gore, Grief, Mental illness, Murder, Violence, and Vomit

Moderate: Cursing, Death of parent, Gun violence, Medical content, and Stalking

Minor: Chronic illness, Confinement, Genocide, Sexual content, and Suicide