Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Gideon z Dziewiątego by Tamsyn Muir

105 reviews

jjjreads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-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: Abandonment, Blood, Body horror, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, Self harm, Slavery, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, and Violence

tarynlannister's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious sad tense medium-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Grief, Medical content, Terminal illness, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Bullying, and Xenophobia

Minor: Child abuse, Confinement, War, Sexual content, and Emotional abuse

cattails's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious tense 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Murder, Toxic relationship, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Child death, Child abuse, Death of parent, Grief, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Cancer, Cannibalism, Chronic illness, Infertility, Medical trauma, Religious bigotry, and Suicide attempt

mmefish's review against another edition

challenging dark slow-paced

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

2.0

Expect messy worlbuilding, cringy internet humor, toxic relationships and overall confusion for most of the book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Terminal illness, and Toxic relationship

starrygal's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Blood, Cancer, Death, Murder, Violence, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Stalking, and Suicide

Minor: War, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Death of parent, Confinement, and Child abuse

ashletpants's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Violence, Blood, Child abuse, Murder, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Death of parent, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Suicidal thoughts, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Colonisation

hanarama'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

The Good:

•  Snarky, funny main character 
•  Lots of twists
• Crosses multiple genres

 
The Bad:

•  Hard to keep track of side characters 

You Might Like This if You Like:

•  Thor Ragnarok 
• Enemies to lovers
• Lesbians with swords 

Gideon is such a fun main character. It's been awhile since I've read a character with so much snark and attitude. She has loads of big, dumb himbo energy and is everything you could want in a badass, space swordswoman. 

I wasn't expecting a murder mystery plot, but I found it immensely enjoyable as Gideon and Harrow provide a lot of excellent banter. The central mystery is set up well with plenty of secondary reveals that keep you on your toes. 

My one issue was with how many side characters there are. Everyone has nicknames and is known by both first and last name to different characters, so it can be hard to keep everyone straight at the start. 

As a warning, this is an everyone can die type of story. But with necromancer involved, that may not always be super permanent, but frequently it is. 
 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Death, Gore, Murder, and Toxic relationship

illuminatedspace's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

Honestly one of the best books I've ever read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment, Body horror, Cannibalism, Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Medical trauma, Terminal illness, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Vomit, Grief, and Self harm

chikytendy's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Gore, Grief, Murder, Physical abuse, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Violence

naughtrobot's review against another edition

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

4.0

I embrace all things related to necromancy, so I was instantly attracted to Gideon The Ninth with it tagline hinting at necromantic adventures in space. Also the artwork of Gideon on the cover looking like a complete bad ass helped as well. After reading this book I have a few observations that future readers may want to consider should they decide to read Gideon The Ninth.

•  The tagline "Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!" is a little misleading. There really isn't a mention of a romantic relationship between Gideon or anyone one else other than she finds a few of the other women in the story attractive. I guess if you travel via a starship from one planet to another you can say the story is set in space, but that's pretty much all the "in space" part of the book. Gideon The Ninth remains an entertaining story, but just realize it extremely focuses on necromancy and little of the other topics called out in the tagline.
  
  
• The necromancy described in the book is more in depth than your standard zombie controlled garden variety. I love the concept of raising an army of zombies. But this book explores other ideas of necromancy such as using bone material for constructs, flesh manipulation, and siphoning off a person's life force to fuel necromantic spells. I appreciate the effort that went into making necromancy more just raising the dead. Very well done.
  
  
• The book is slow paced for the first 100 or so pages. During that time there was a lot of world building. With my interest in necromancy I did enjoy learning about how it worked within the Locked Tomb's universe. Once the story got into the murder mystery the pace did pickup some. It wasn't until half way into act four that the pace quicken to my liking. There was still enough going on to maintain my interest that I can forgive the slow build up to the end of the story.
  
  
• I loved the ending it was worth the wait and altered my mind about continuing on with the rest of the trilogy. I look forward to what Tamsyn Muir has in store for the following book Harrow The Ninth.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Toxic relationship