Reviews tagging 'Incest'

Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

5 reviews

k_aro's review

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

I took the longest to finish Nona the Ninth, not really out of Nona's failings or anything, I just couldn't get into the grove of having a whole bunch of narratives at once at the same time as an entire new cast of characters/new world. I also think it's the book that's easiest for me to tackle in The Locked Tomb series, both having a better grasp of the writing style/world as well as being structured a little more accessibly.

Off the bat, Nona's internal narrative is much more loving and caring than Gideon and Harrow, which is to say I spent so much more of GtN and HtN actively being confused and annoyed by the various characters, where in Nona they're a lot more understandable. NtN really does pull out to look at what the TLT-verse looks like outside of the Houses (and to a certain degree that life outside of them are in fact so fruitful and lively, which is something I just couldn't really imagine previously).

Ianthe is worse than ever, which is a compliment because I love how terrible she is. Muir really excels at the most horrifying relationships, experienced through shreds of narrative. I agree that NtN really feels like a prologue, but frankly a prologue to what I could not say; this seems to be a running TLT joke where each book is just more confusing and more disorienting than the last. Truly, I could not imagine what Alecto will do.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Police brutality, Dysphoria, Genocide, Gun violence, Violence, Car accident, Death, Body horror, Colonisation, Confinement, Drug use, Grief, Panic attacks/disorders, Incest, Self harm, Toxic relationship, War, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Terminal illness

Terminal Illness:

Well, whether Nona's illness is terminal per se is up for interpretation, I guess.

tnm94's review against another edition

dark emotional funny 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? Yes

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Murder, Gun violence, Body horror, Gore, Blood, Death, War, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Sexual content, Eating disorder, Suicidal thoughts, Incest, and Fire/Fire injury

rowanbg's review

2.5

I think that the issue that I have with these books is that Muir is a good writer, and that prevents people from seeing how Weird she is with some stuff. Nona is her weakest book yet, and that means that the issues stand out even more.
Here are some of the things I think Muir is Weird about

• Disability: I touched on this in a previous review. Muir has a tendency to be infantalizing towards disabled characters, and this definitely applies to the autistic-coded Nona, who is treated like a child while retaining some of the sexuality of an adult. It's very manic pixie dream girl/born sexy yesterday, but at least we don't have a mediocre white man love interest. Besides that, Cam and Pal's situation makes me wonder if Muir consulted a DID system at all when writing.
• gender/transness: because of the whole lyctor/possession situation, there are a number of trans-coded characters, but no real discussion of actual transness, dysphoria or what it means to be in a body that doesn't totally fit. Also, having the brown, transfem-coded Pyrrha being mistaken as a pimp as a joke is. um.
• twin dynamics/incest: I saw someone on tumblr argue that the Locked Tomb series is gothic horror, and incest is a common facet of gothic horror, and that's why Ianthe and Coronabeth are like that, but gothic horror is maybe the third genre I would put this under, and their relationship is used for humor more often than it is for horror. Part of the problem is that since Ianthe was a major character in the last book, audiences are already endeared to her, and Cornonabeth takes neither an active, nor a resistant role in their relationship. As a twin, I'm always going to find twincest icky, but I think the book could do a lot more to convey how creepy it is.

Besides the weird stuff, Nona was both kind of bloated, and not detailed enough as a sequel. I read the first two books last year and didn't re-read them before this, which I feel is pretty normal, and I was completely lost about what was happening in the world when reading Nona. I made it about 1/3 of the way through the book thinking that Pyrrha was the 2nd house necromancer from the first book. By the end, everything still felt jumbled and confusing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Eating disorder, Blood, Violence, Vomit, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Incest, Fire/Fire injury, and Death

voidboi's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious reflective 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

4.5

that was delightful and also gave me a migraine 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Gun violence, Murder, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence

Moderate: Body horror, Cursing, Eating disorder, Grief, Mental illness, Incest, Suicidal thoughts, and War

Minor: Medical content, Vomit, Colonisation, Genocide, and Toxic friendship

daydreamermoonwalker's review

dark emotional funny 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? Yes

5.0

I haven't gathered all my thoughts together yet, so I'll leave a more detailed review later, but I absolutely loved it! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Gore, Grief, Violence, Terminal illness, Child death, Colonisation, Gun violence, Blood, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Vomit, Alcohol, Suicidal thoughts, Drug use, and Incest

Note on the terminal illness:

the main character is dying over the course of the story, but it's not from a real world illness. It's more supernatural in nature, but I thought I'd mention it just in case. A minor character also is very ill throughout the story, but again, it's supernatural in nature.

Child death:

the character who dies isn't technically a child, but their memory is wiped so they behave and think like one. So tagged it just in case.

Incest: it is implied by the way two characters interact with each other, but it is not explicitly in the text or at all graphic.