Reviews tagging 'War'

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

114 reviews

heirofchairs's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny lighthearted mysterious 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? It's complicated

5.0

This is dead ass one of my favorite books of all time. God. It's so so so so so so good like this is a bad review but if the concept of "space lesbian necromancers" is enough to perk your interest trust me when I say it's Even Better than that premise suggests.

Also one of the fucking funniest books I've read, like it isn't a comedy specifically but Muir's wit is like if a classical author grew up on Tumblr memes (in a good way)

Anyways please fucking read this buy this please I'm dying 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Suicide attempt, Grief, Blood, Cancer, and Murder

Moderate: Abandonment and War

Minor: Child death, Child abuse, and Physical abuse

hamstringy's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious 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

4.0

bold of this to be both one of the funniest and most emotional books I’ve read so far in 2022.

This book plays the line between genuinely hilarious, dark, and violent so well. Harrow and Gideon’s relationship is so well developed, as are most of the characters. Hella way to end a book too.
I will say the only real thing that stands out in terms of (very nitpicky) issues is that the book moves pretty slowly until about 75% of the way through the book and then it is a dead sprint to the end. Luckily I didn’t have to put it down. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Blood, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, and Violence

Moderate: Cancer, Terminal illness, War, and Cursing

derberner's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious sad tense 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Terminal illness, Chronic illness, Death, Body horror, and Violence

Moderate: Cancer, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, and Suicide

Minor: War

shy_fairy's review against another edition

adventurous 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Torture, Vomit, Gore, Blood, Violence, Death, Body horror, Cancer, Genocide, Murder, War, and Suicide

beesknees's review against another edition

challenging 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? Yes

5.0

Gideon the Ninth lives up to its hype. This book was an absolute treasure to read. Bold and almost indescribable, full of great dialogue and atmosphere--a fresh take on the space opera! Read for mystery, a diverse and interesting cast of characters, a spooky and potentially haunted house, and a mysterious universe in which necromancers reign. A notable takeaway I believe prospective readers should be aware of: You're going to be confused, let it happen! I appreciate the way Muir creates an atmosphere of mystery during very specific parts of the book, but writes things clearly when necessary.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, and Body horror

Moderate: Child death and War

Minor: Cancer and Terminal illness

gayghostprince's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny 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? It's complicated

5.0

I'm crying :'( but I love it 

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Chronic illness, Death of parent, Child death, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, War, Vomit, Torture, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Child abuse, and Cancer

aangult's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

5.0

Incredible.

Killed off all my favourite characters except for one, who just randomly disappeared.

I love sci-fi, and I enjoy me some well throught-through worldbuilding. Admittedly, the worldbuilding here took me a while to grasp, but that’s most of the fun. Plot-wise, I can’t quite pinpoint the moment where everything went to shit

(my guess would be Magnus and Abigail but that seems too easy),

but oh man did it go to shit. I was just too distracted by how delightful the characters were fleshed out from Gideon’s point of view of lacking social expertise, that I failed to notice to how much shit everything went up until maybe

Jeannemary.

At that point I remember thinking that none of these characters except maybe one or two would survive the book

(I knew about Gideon beforehand) and lo and behold— yeah.

Gideon became one of my favourite characters within a couple pages of chapter one.

Which, with the knowledge of how this book ends, turned into an emotional rollercoaster throughout. Or maybe more of an emotional free-fall tower.

I do love them good at heart and self-sacrificial as shit, but good god, nothing could have prepared me for How good and self-sacrificial she would be. 

I enjoyed all the addendums at the end a lot, I love fun little tid-bits and dumb jokes after having just been entirely emotionally destroyed. As soon as this is typed up I’ll scour the internet for the stupidest pieces of fanart I can find. 

Great first book of the year, helped me survive writing my thesis <3

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, War, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Body horror, Death, and Murder

house_of_hannah's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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

2.0

This ended up being much more of a slog to get through than it should have been. It wasn't until the last 100 pages that I was interested enough to want to keep reading. I found myself not reading some days, because I just did not want to pick this book up, and I was quite close to DNF-ing. 

Firstly, this is advertised right on the front cover as, "lesbian necromancers in space". I do feel this a little misleading. The only "confirmed" lesbian character (who could also be argued as bi based on mutliple comments they make throughout the book) is not a necromancer. The story then mostly takes place on Earth, so we're hard pressed to actually have the space vibes that were promised. 

For the first 200 pages of this book nothing happens. It mostly consists of our MC, Gideon, walking down hallways, checking out abandoned rooms, and eating food. She isn't allowed to talk to the other people that are there either, so this whole chunk of story is pretty much just urban exploring. 

When the plot finally starts to get rolling it still doesn't take off like I thought it would. The main meat of this book happens in the last 40 pages, and the ending just kind of left me feeling like the entire thing was pointless. This is a series, but I just cannot see myself wanting to pick up the next book. 

The relationship between the two MCs, Gideon and Harrow, is exceptionally complicated, which does provide some intrigue as we want to see if they can work together. However, their attitudes towards each other shift so drastically in just one scene that it ends up being a bit off-putting. The way the rest of the characters interact with our MCs is just fine though.  

The best thing in this book are by far the fight scenes. Unfortunately, they are few and far between, but they really do shine. Overall, I just feel like this story didn't deliver what it was offering. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Body horror, Chronic illness, Suicide, Violence, Murder, Cursing, Death of parent, Terminal illness, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: War and Vomit

traciereads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Cancer, Blood, and Body horror

Moderate: Cursing, Genocide, Violence, Child death, Chronic illness, Abandonment, and Murder

Minor: Terminal illness, Suicide, War, Rape, Death of parent, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

enbae's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cancer, Death, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, Suicide, Terminal illness, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: War, Death of parent, Child death, and Cursing

The ending of the book might not leave the reader with a feeling of satisfaction. After reading i felt sad and kind of empty inside