Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

35 reviews

boglord's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious 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

4.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Toxic friendship, Gore, War, Blood, Death, Body horror, Genocide, Grief, Gun violence, Murder, Violence, and Vomit

Moderate: Alcohol, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Colonisation, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Abandonment, Cursing, Death of parent, and Gaslighting

Minor: Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, Suicidal thoughts, and Ableism

rtaire's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad 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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Murder, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Grief, and Medical content

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Grief, and Vomit

toomuchgawking's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad 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

4.75

I’ve read it three times and I’m still confused but it’s SO good.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse and Body horror

purplepenning's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

4.0

I've never read such a fascinating, brain-breaking, frustrating, stomach-turning, compelling, off-putting, word-feast of an epic science fantasy horror mystery in my life. Muir is a heck of a writer (the humor! the viscera! the metaphor! the meter! the characters! the action!) but I'd have to read both Gideon and Harrow again to feel like I understand enough to say more. And I'm not likely to do that. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Violence, Body horror, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Blood, Child death, and Gore

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Genocide, Physical abuse, Alcohol, Sexual content, War, Death of parent, Panic attacks/disorders, Cursing, and Mental illness

Minor: Pregnancy

necrophilia

anxiousnachos's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional

5.0

Where do I even start to review this absolute masterpiece of a second novel? It has taken me an embarrassing amount of time to pick up Harrow and I’ll fully admit it’s because I wasn’t quite as in love with Gideon the Ninth as I expected to be. But I saw this book in the library and thought what the hell, it’s time. And what a fucking idiot I’ve been when I could have made this book my entire personality OVER A YEAR AGO if I’d only read it then.

This book is a master class in point of view, plot structure, horror as comedy, the exceptional use of gothic genre, and divinity. I’d like to discuss each of these in turn.

Point of view
I think second person POV gets a real bad rep in the book community but I am a big fan of it, it’s one of my favourite tools Muir used in this book. I think this showed the same expertise that Jemisin showed in her use of second-person POV in the The Broken Earth trilogy. This tense creates such an element of mystery and omnipotence and horror - it is a POV for horror and it is used expertly in Harrow.

Structure
I know lots of people found Harrow’s structure confusing, but somehow I actually found this one less confusing than Gideon. Maybe because of my love of books with timelines that jump around and you kind of just accept not knowing what’s going on and go along for the ride?? But I loved not knowing what the fuck was happening, loved the timeline structure that gave us past and future Harrrow, I thought it allowed us a much deeper sense of who Harrow was and a much closer connection to her which made the events of the book so much more horrific for the reader and so much more unbearable in their grief.

Horror as comedy
Have I ever read a funnier book? I definitely can’t quite remember ever laughing at one quite so much as this. Page after page, I just could not stop laughing. The soup scene absolutely undid me, and I want it to get the love it deserves as peak humour and utter genius.

Gothic
Where do I even begin? This entire book is a masterclass in the idea of gothic genre as haunting; Harrow as haunted by past, by trauma, by loss, by the genocide of her conception, by grief. It it fantastic, and it is so deeply traumatic to read, I never wanted to stop and yet it also felt like I was being repeatedly punched in the chest, and then I read the author's note and it made sense. Muir gets Harrow because Muir has lived Harrow.

Divinity 
The twist to such has intimate relationship with, and worship of, divinity in Harrow was an interesting choice but one which I loved because I am of course always obsessed with the portrayal of religion in SFF. I am deeply looking forward to delving closer into divinity on reread as I feel this will be an area that so much more is noticed on reread. But all I can say is I loved the fatherly vibes, I loved the subtle darkness below the surface, I loved the relationships God had with each of his companions and how that manipulated the relationships they had with each other, I loved loved loved it.

This book is a masterpiece of gothic science fantasy, it will emotionally haunt me as Harrow is haunted by a 10,000 year old corpse. 

Content warnings: hallucinations, depictions of severe mental health crisis, grief, mass child death, genocide, graphic blood and gore, war, body horror, vomit, self-harm (for magic), graphic descriptions of corpses, murder, necrophilia, sex, death of parent, death of loved one, suicide, physical abuse, emotional abuse, amputation

----

Finished it with 3 minutes left of sapphic September to spare!! A MASTERPIECE. Full review incoming after I sleep.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicide, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Vomit, and War

emilyplun's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious 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

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Violence, Body horror, Toxic relationship, and Blood

Moderate: Gaslighting, Death of parent, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Sexual content

hidemybook's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Blood, Cursing, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, and Body horror

Moderate: Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Grief, and Gaslighting

Minor: Cannibalism

jayecard's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Cursing, Death, Gun violence, Vomit, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Kidnapping, Blood, Body horror, Cancer, Grief, and Gore

Minor: Pregnancy, Death of parent, and Suicidal thoughts

cattails's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Panic attacks/disorders, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, Violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Mental illness, Gore, Emotional abuse, Blood, Body horror, Grief, Gaslighting, Death of parent, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Gaslighting, Murder, War, Religious bigotry, Abandonment, Alcohol, Body horror, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Cannibalism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicidal thoughts, Violence, and Xenophobia

Minor: Child death, Child abuse, and Infertility

jkpiowa's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

The first book in this series, Gideon the Ninth, is known for being extremely confusing until everything sort of clears up in the last chapters of the book. Harrow the Ninth is the same, except I was left with even more questions at the end than I was with Gideon. 

This book picks up immediately after Gideon and is not remotely a standalone story. The story is intentionally left obscure and confusing until the ending, where it is revealed this obscurity is a piece of the plot. The ending is a cliffhanger, though I don't know if it's a cliffhanger that will be picked up in Nona the Ninth, or if it's just a cliffhanger ending to Harrow's story.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, and War

Minor: Sexual content and Emotional abuse