Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

31 reviews

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

helfire124's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Violence, Mental illness, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Animal death, Death, Blood, and Body horror

Minor: Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Child abuse, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Alcohol

elizmoe's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious tense fast-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 read this book in less than two days even though, i cannot emphasize enough, i had a <i> lot </i> of other things to do. 

tamsyn muir, waht is WRONG WITH you. what is. what is WRONG. IS wrong??? with you??????????

in typical muir fashion, she transitions seamlessly to a new POV character, leaves the reader mostly in the dark, and continually throws crazy world-building stuff that you didn't even know you wanted to know. but you did. <i> really </i> want to know. 

essentially, this book answered many of the questions raised by Harrow the Ninth, but somehow ends up raising about a million more. 

was harrow's soul in alecto's body or did it get transferred to the river, and is it now on earth having a chat with john, or john's abandoned once-human soul?? what's gonna happen to harrow's body? was nona the personification of the earth's spirit or was she alecto or was she alecto AND alecto is the personification of  the earth? also, why is kiriona!gideon such a dick, and why is she friends with ianthe, sorta? who has her two-hander sword?? will tamsyn ever give us a griddlehark reunion that makes a lick of sense? will the next book have even more body/soul/etc swapping, and how is that even possible given the amount of bodily musical chairs was happening in this book? also, pAUL???????????????????????????

all i know for sure is that i am pre-ordering alecto right now and blocking off my calendar for the entire week of the release date.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Kidnapping, Body horror, Cursing, Eating disorder, Murder, Sexual harassment, War, Alcohol, Colonisation, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical content

Moderate: Child abuse

Minor: Domestic abuse, Drug use, Sexual violence, Child abuse, Confinement, Drug abuse, Terminal illness, Trafficking, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, and Child death

griffinthief's review

challenging emotional mysterious 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, War, Police brutality, Body horror, Cursing, Mental illness, Death, Blood, Gun violence, Murder, Vomit, Injury/Injury detail, and Terminal illness

Minor: Death of parent, Pregnancy, Suicidal thoughts, Car accident, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Bullying

lady_valhella's review

challenging dark funny mysterious 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? No

4.0

As always I don’t fully grasp the whole story and what is going on. It truly takes me back to AP English Lit and books like the Cantebury Tales and Heart of Darkness. I have a love for; nay, an infatuation for the dark and strange. Nona is strange indeed and necromancy is dark. But Nona is damn adorable!  If Tamsin Muir continues to put out tales of space necromancers I will continue to put myself in a position to be baffled, delighted, confused, horrified and infatuated with all of her characters.  How does she do it!?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Mental illness, Death, Eating disorder, and Terminal illness

Minor: Animal cruelty and Confinement

kers_tin's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful 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? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, War, Eating disorder, Gore, Body horror, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Torture, Addiction, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Terminal illness

Minor: Drug use

jessthanthree's review

adventurous dark mysterious sad slow-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Death, and Gun violence

Moderate: War, Violence, Medical content, Terminal illness, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Vomit and Suicidal thoughts

vercopaanir's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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: Confinement, Death, Murder, War, Gun violence, Colonisation, Eating disorder, Gore, Mental illness, Xenophobia, Terminal illness, Violence, and Vomit

Moderate: Drug use, Cursing, Body horror, and Blood

Minor: Cannibalism

rmperezpadilla's review

emotional funny 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Death, Violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Gun violence, War, and Murder

Moderate: Self harm, Ableism, Terminal illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Eating disorder

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