Reviews with content warning for Torture - Gideon the Ninth

Reviews tagging 'Torture'

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

54 reviews

erebus53's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny lighthearted mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.0

I was suggested this read by my co-parent. When I started reading I was almost overwhelmed by the world building. I think it would have been easier to take in as a novel than an audiobook because it started with a list of dramatis personae (characters) and as I did not know anything about the world it was a lot to take in. As someone who was a gothic teen I fully got behind the aesthetic of robes and dinge, and wearing sunglasses inside. The setting feels low tech but then you remember that there are spaceships, and you are just hanging out in ruins of centuries past.

This is a story about a group of necromancers, each paired with a fighter, who are attempting to unlock the secrets of a complex that will allow them to ascend to semi-godhood. They are needed as the tools of a mighty god necrolord who is .. running out of minions (which could cause the end of the empire?). The plot flow runs like a party based RPG and the challenges feel a bit like a videogame. I was reminded of Portal more than once.

This book is a confluence of nerdinesses. The language was appealing to me because the author is a New Zealander (like me). Many of the quirky idioms are from my local Kiwi dialect and from internet memespeek, which meant that I was right at home with the queer parlance. There was even a "yeah nah" in there which made me chuckle, and, until now, I have never once heard of someone referred to in a novel as "a bit of a d*ck". As someone who is interested in anatomy, I found myself familiar with medical terminology that was liberally peppered through the book, and as someone who reads psychology books, I was also familiar with random gushes of pop-psychology neuroscience. This might make the book a little impenetrable or, just exotic? to some readers.

As far as the action in the story is concerned, combat flows like an action anime. There are rapier duels and magic duels and combos of the two. There are weird undead things and so much rot, bone, teeth, goo, viscera, flesh, blood, body parts.. unidentifiable liquids. Things jab and pierce and stick and gloop and spray. I was reminded of Akira, Elfen Lied, and Attack on Titan (and many other newer and less well known titles). The plot turns on a dime and the antagonists launch into expository monologues that reveal that you were completely in the dark in so many ways, but I don't hate it.

Also as in anime there are some .. kind of problematic moments that are pure "fanservice". The main character is continually eyeing-up and sexualising other characters, which comes across as funny, and also very gay, but also a bit eyerollingly cringe.

Wrap this all together with some deep lore, trauma-informed tragic backstory, a few (deliberately) disastrously toxic relationships, and some feels, and you get a recipe for a book that launches a fandom. Yeah, I'll read the others, even if parts of it are a hot mess and I don't actually enjoy all the fight-scenes and battles. The characters are fun and there is enough deliberately left unrevealed that I am intrigued to find out what comes next.

Content Warnings

ivan_tw's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional funny fast-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

3.25

Hardly great literature, but fun and easy-reading, with a charming cast of characters and a few legitimately surprising twists along the way. My only criticism would be in the length; it didn't need to be 500 pages long.

Content Warnings

booking_along's review against another edition

Go to review page

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? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

If my heart had a dick you would kick it.

Gideon was one of the best characters to read about. She’s one of those characters that are just a joy to read.
even though with Gideon, it’s a bit strange to say that, not only on regards of the story itself, but also her character which is just not a joyful character at all.

She’s a snarky ball of sarcasm, deadly and stab happy and would fight a blanket if it looked at her either too long or in a funny way.

But at the same time she’s incredibly caring and loving, friendly and buried deep under all that quick snark she clearly likes people.

so i just enjoyed her and how the story was told with her voice.

the plot itself was good.
honestly it was very chaotic and for 99% of the book it feels like nobody including the author actually knew where it was going and if anything will ever make sense or if there even is an explanation to everything.
and for a lot of things there are never real and logical explanations given.

the murder mysteries and strange puzzles and what it all means are interesting, but i am not sure if i enjoyed it or was just happy once the story finally got over those sections and moved on to trying to short through what’s going on overall.

also the constant thing of nobody being and doing what they were or said to be… it was a lot.

and at the end… there kinda is one that makes some resemblance of sense, so there is that i guess?
what i mean by that it is that there are some resemblance of tries given to explain what’s happening through this book ins own ways. but even those are chaotic and leave a lot more question then answers are given.
also the end is a lot of action to the point where i just wanted it to come to an end somehow because i was getting bored with the kind of fights given.

honestly this story is build on the characters and the writing style itself and less on the actual plot and/or logic or really any kind of connectable sense.

the actual ending ending of this book through?
i am not sure if i want throw something, cry, rip the book or either reread it right away or go on to the next one or never touch this series again.

i am frustrated and sad and the same amounts of disbelief and shock that the author actual did that.

which to be fair is just part of the entire range of emotions i went through while reading the book.

i enjoyed this book. a lot.
but i also kind of hate it?
which is interesting. not sure i ever raged loved a book before? wasn’t even aware sich a thing could happen.

Content Warnings

hannahsmanyhobbies's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

I’m confused in the best way, and it’s pretty much exactly what I thought it would be. And I don’t do zombies but that’s basically what this is and somehow it’s working for me. Picking up the second book literally tomorrow.

Content Warnings

katbsc's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

Positives: The plot is incredible and fun, the twists are great, the characters are sassy and layered. Humor cuts tension.
Negatives:The exposition of this book is so dense and yet not dense enough. It's a complicated, unfamiliar world being built, and building it in your mind is quite the task. The language of the book has an air of trying a little too hard to sound profound, which can be off-putting. There is a HUGE cast of characters in this book, and each character is referred to in a rotation of 4 different ways: their first name, their last name, their house/role, and their physical description. This can be VERY confusing to try to keep straight (at least to me in my ADHD brain)

Content Warnings

takarakei's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging 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

4.0

What a wild ride. I knew going into this book that it was going to be confusing based on other reviews I've read. I think that helps because going into it not knowing that it might be hard to get through. Unfortunately I was very distracted by personal life things going on, and because of that for the first half of this book I think I was extra confused. Then I read the second half basically in one day/sitting with a few breaks. It's definitely unlike anything I've ever read before, so that makes it rather hard to describe and review. It's either going to be your cup of tea or not. The second half is fantastic once you've gotten to the point where you know the characters

and some of them get killed off so there's less than you start with!

. There's a dry, tongue-in-cheek kind of humor that I loved. Gideon is very snarky and her pov is fun to read.

The character list in the front of this book is way necessary. The characters are often referred to by some combo of first name, last name, house position, some have nicknames and I constantly had to refer back to this character list to understand who was who.

I am excited to continue this series when I have a bit more time to focus on my reading because I do think I will enjoy these possibly even more!

Content Warnings