Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

186 reviews

scifi_rat's review

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Torture, Cursing, Blood, Bullying, Cancer, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death of parent, Murder, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Medical content, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Child death, Vomit, Emotional abuse, and Gaslighting

risaleel's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Toxic friendship, and Violence

Moderate: Body horror, Chronic illness, Classism, Confinement, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, and Terminal illness

Minor: Abandonment, Cursing, and War

madzie'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? Yes

4.75

 Epic. Muir flawlessly weaves intertwines genres of fantasy, science fiction, and horror to create something truly unique. She hits every genre on the head. The plot is well-structured and offers some unique twists and turns. The mystery that runs throughout the book becomes enthralling and pulls you in for every minute. In the end, everything perfectly fits to create a truly epic story perfect for any fantasy lover (or emo). Overall, the worldbuilding is interesting and inventive. Some questions were left unanswered, but they did not distract from the overall enjoyment of the world. 

The characters are fun and quirky, allowing them to jump off the page. All the main characters feel like real people and operate around each other with interesting dynamics that permit the exploration of themes. Particularly, Harrow and Gideon feel like old friends to the reader, and watching them interact is pure gold. I feel like I could follow them anywhere. However, side characters often get lost in the shuffle, even becoming confusingly mixed up due to a lack of development and leading me to care little for their ultimate endings.

However, Muir’s tale is mostly weighed down by some writing choices. Her style is very dense, and while this works alright throughout most of the novel when it comes to action scenes, it is a haul to get through as the sentence structure makes everything else drag behind. 

Muir’s true talent shines through with her use of themes, which are expertly explored. Interestingly, Muir uses queer themes without making queerphobia a part of her novel, offering a perspective I have never seen before but certainly enjoy. Muir allows her characters to be unapologetically (and more importantly without explanation) queer yet flawlessly incorporates themes of queerness throughout the novel, allowing us to use fantasy for its true purpose to explore our world in a removed setting. Further, Muir asks us to question human drive and how our actions result from it. Through Muir’s light-handed writing, readers ponder our interactions with others, religion, control, and emotions, working together to demonstrate how horrifyingly we can treat each other when our insecurities are left unchecked.

In the end, the popularity of this novel is highly understandable. The characters, plot, and themes work together wonderfully with only a few setbacks leaving it shy of five stars.

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Bullying, Grief, Cancer, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Suicide, Abandonment, and Death of parent

regalpotato's review against another edition

adventurous challenging 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

My favourite book. I've reread it (and listened to the audiobook) numerous times. The writing is easy to read but still fantastic prose. The characters are all deeply flawed but you can't help but adore them. There's a lot of queerness, and enemies to reluctant allies, to much deeper than lovers. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Blood, Child abuse, Death, Child death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Body horror, Death of parent, and Murder

Minor: War and Suicide

immovabletype'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? No

5.0

Read my full review on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/p/Cuq34OhuywC

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Cancer, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Suicide, Terminal illness, and Violence

Moderate: Infertility, Medical content, and Child death

Minor: War

blubonby'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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Violence, and Death

Moderate: Child death and Grief

joyandfaye's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Terminal illness, Death, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, Cancer, Abandonment, Child death, Vomit, Suicide, Murder, Blood, Violence, Toxic friendship, Gore, Cursing, and Cannibalism

kshertz's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-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

3.75

This was such a fascinating intelligent book with so many twists and turns. I tried really hard to follow it all but there were I think too many characters for me. I wasn’t able to get invested in the characters in the story as much as I wanted to be. I also was hoping for it to be a little bit more about love stories and it definitely was plot and about badass women. Such an interesting world and overall a very cool book.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Lesbophobia, War, Grief, Death, Gore, Violence, Body shaming, Death of parent, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder

harrimyers's review against another edition

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

i Love this book. i love it. i love it so so so so so so so much. the ending has devastated me. i am broken. what the fuck what the fuck i anticipated not a single plot point. not one. what the fuck

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Religious bigotry, Physical abuse, Murder, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Body horror, Colonisation, Child death, Abandonment, Chronic illness, Blood, Confinement, Violence, Terminal illness, Cursing, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Death, and Death of parent

blacksphinx's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious 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

5.0

Books like this is why there's been a resurgence of the term "weird fiction." Is this book sci fi, fantasy, or horror? Yes and no! Also it's a murder mystery!

I feel like describing this book as "lesbian necromancers in space" is really underselling it. In a galaxy ruled by a God Emperor divided into nine houses of necromancers ruling nine planets, the number of necromancer-followers who ascended into immortality alongside the Emperor have dwindled over the last ten thousand years. The time has come to test the houses to see who can ascend next. Our protagonist Gideon does not give a damn. All she wants to do is escape the Ninth House forever, but Gideon's childhood nemesis and the current heir to the house, Harrowhark Nonagesimus, traps her into acting as her sword and bodyguard for the dangerous trials of the Emperor that are to come. With nine necromancers secluded from the rest of the galaxy in a crumbling ruin of an earlier era, what will they do to attain godhood? Also this is a queer-normative setting and the protagonist is a lesbian that blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. 

It's funny and irreverent most of the time, but Tamsyn Muir also knows how to raise the stakes and presented us with a twisty mystery that made me slap my forehead at the final reveal. Pay close attention to what doesn't add up, because in the end it will! (With just enough mysteries left over to make you want to keep reading the next book.)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Terminal illness, Blood, Gore, Death, Murder, Chronic illness, and Cursing

Moderate: Bullying, Child death, Suicide, Vomit, Grief, Toxic friendship, Excrement, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Death of parent, Cancer, War, Infertility, Alcohol, and Colonisation