Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

200 reviews

emalderwood's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

After the last book's ending I thought I'd need a while before reading this but the characters wouldn't get out of my head, so finally gave in. Even with my heartbreak from the previous book this sequel did NOT disappoint. It was somehow like reading a puzzle with constantly changing rules and pieces and with the same weirdness and humour I loved from the first book (albeit not *quite* as pronounced due to the circumstances). Tamsyn Muir's use of POV and other clues to build to the climax was the kind of creative boundary pushing I want more of in my reading, and absolutely brilliant. You may think you can predict what's coming, but then there will still be twists you never expected and still more twists you hadn't dared hope for but were executed like a surprise gift just for the reader. I have no idea where this trainwreck is going next but I'll be on the next train because after this second installment I trust Muir to bring it to a spectacular and amazing conclusion. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, and Blood

Moderate: Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Suicide and Torture

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

boywonder's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.75

I liked this better than the last book, which surprised me because I'm not a fan of second-person writing most of the time. I think the effect here is confusing on purpose; the reader is confused because Harrow is confused. 

This book helped me understand Harrow a lot better (though I don't like her all that much, but liking a character has nothing to do with whether they are well-written or a good character). I think the pacing is kind of slow at the start, which is in keeping with the last book.

I don't really like or appreciate the tumblr meme additions like "none x with left y" and things like that. Because I know a bunch of spoilers that come after this, I sort of understand why they might fit, but it doesn't work for me. I also think after the reveal of who the second-person narrator is, the tone changes to be more what you expect from that character and it was almost jarring.

For me, seeing that this author CAN write less snappy on purpose than the last book, I was almost disappointed. The first book really stood out to me as internet writing and this one didn't (for the most part) until the last quarter. Still, overall I like this book better, though I like Gideon as a character more than Harrow.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Gore, Violence, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Vomit and War

ellenwm's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.5

Stock up on red string and push pins  because this book is wild!!! You will say “what the hell is happening?!” many times. You’ll re-read (or replay the audio book) for many sections. You’ll check character lists. You will be frustrated that the puzzle pieces aren’t coming together and don’t seem to even be from the same puzzle.

But Woaw is it worth it!!! This is not an easy or quick read, though. Two things kept me going: reviews that (correctly) said the final quarter brings it all together in a satisfying way and my absolute adoration for Gideon the Ninth. The majority of the novel alternates between two plot lines, with one written in second person to distinguish it. That choice irked me at first, but the function and the reason were eventually borne out. There’s a glaring difference from Gideon the Ninth for most of the book that will also disappoint many readers (but that you can’t really say without spoiling GtN), but it’ll make sense eventually.

This curious, dark exploration of grief, trauma, ethics, love and mortality asks as many questions as it answers. It is rare that a novel is so carefully plotted, complicated and connected, featuring a world and characters full of surprises.

Same as with GtN though, CONTENT WARNINGS for violence, gore and body horror. I’m still kind of shocked at how well I’m tolerating that content, but somehow the intense plot and beautiful writing make the gross bones and body stuff worth it to me?

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Child death, Cursing, Genocide, and Murder

Minor: Cursing

sdskuld's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-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? Yes

5.0

What an ambitious sequel full of head games any mystery, but it works. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief

Moderate: Body horror, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Injury/Injury detail

DO NOT START WITH THIS BOOK. Start with Gideon the Ninth

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

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

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, Gore, Mental illness, Torture, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Suicide