Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

Nona la nona by Tamsyn Muir

30 reviews

dancers_and_dragons's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional 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

5.0

This is both the quickest read and the most complex of The Locked Tomb series so far, Nona the Ninth is absolutely stunning in the connections it draws, the questions it answers, and the myriad more questions it creates for the reader. If I hadn't already understood some things about Gideon and Harrow the Ninth (the books, not the characters), this book would be utterly incomprehensible, but knowing what I do know I gained some snippets of understanding from within the lack of comprehension. 

Seriously such a good book, from the relationships to the intercallary chapters to the hints that Muir sprinkles throughout, both the obvious and the less so. It's definitely a challenging book, but well worth the read, especially as an audiobook. Moira Quirk does an excellent job with the voices, which does help with some of the chapters when dialogue jumps back and forth between people. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Murder, Drug use, Blood, Violence, Terminal illness, Mental illness, War, and Grief

Minor: Cannibalism

daydreamermoonwalker's review against another edition

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! 

---

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.

plumwildflowers's review against another edition

dark emotional funny 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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, and Death

Minor: Drug use

nicnevin's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny 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? Yes

5.0

I loved this book and Nona loves me.

I pulled the book apart and devoured it. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Alcohol, Body horror, Confinement, Death of parent, Mass/school shootings, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Bullying, Cancer, Classism, Colonisation, Death, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Infidelity, Medical content, Murder, Police brutality, Sexual content, Torture, Vomit, Drug use, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, War, Deadnaming, Dementia, Gore, Grief, Ableism, Body shaming, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Suicide, Violence, Addiction, Blood, Cannibalism, Car accident, Chronic illness, and Suicide attempt

jurizprudence's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad 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

congratulations to nona the ninth for being the only fictional book that made me pull up a bible while reading it

tor and netgalley rejected my arc request because they knew i won't be able to shut my little mouth if i read this book earlier. and what a tragically beautiful book about apocalypse, rebirth and resurrection, found families, and love in its purest, most innocent, and childlike form nona the ninth is! the way it broke my heart into pieces and put them back together in a span of almost 500 pages just like the previous books did was criminal—towards the end i was so fragile that even thinking about camilla's little smiles would require me a five-minute breakdown and a lie-down on the floor of my room. nona's eagerness to give love and her desire to be loved back brought me to tears the most when i finished. she's just so sweet and endearing and too pure for this world that i can't wrap my head around how can anyone not like—even love her. 

i'm not a very articulate person, and i mean it when i say i can't describe how much i adore pyrrha and camilla and palamedes, and how much i miss gideon and harrowhark in this book. a certain prince—the saddest girl in the whole entire world!! i want to sob—got me acting unwise, and i will defend her to anyone who says something bad or mean about her i swear to god. i still admire ianthe's gall and i'm rooting for corona and judith. anyways i hate john with a burning passion and i think he is very pathetic and i want to study him under a microscope. this goes to show that muir is great in writing multifaceted characters—even awful, evil, and minor ones—that you can't help but feel attached to them. i saw readers saying that they didn't care much for nona's friends but i did!! god, i did cry and laugh for hot sauce and born in the morning and even that lying honesty—and it's all thanks to nona and her perspective. 

notice how all i've talk about are the characters? yeah. yeah because the character dynamics are the highlight of this book for me. as for the plot, ntn was obviously easier to follow than htn, and thank goodness for that because i wasn't able to fully reread the previous books. i still got lost several times, but i think i did pretty well, having guessed one (lol) important plot point. still in awe that muir refuses to explain in detail everything that's happening by writing the most unreliable narrators in this universe—and that i actually love it. this series made me realize that i do like being confused. if gideon the ninth is a locked room mystery designed like a puzzle and harrow the ninth is a psychedelic dream meant to gaslight you, nona the ninth is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi fully built on love—love for oneself, friends, family, beliefs, and love for the planet that was your home. i didn't know that it would be as heartbreaking as htn was, but it is—even more so, i think. and for that tamsyn owes me therapy and a promise that griddlehark is endgame in alecto the ninth, thanks very much.


also tamsyn muir can you please stop introducing foul-mouthed and bright-haired women characters because i literally fall in love every time, yes this about pash, dearest our lady of the passion whom nona and i have a crush on, thank you

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Gore, and Violence

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, War, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder

Minor: Drug use, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, and Xenophobia

knerys's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad 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

4.5

---

Content Warnings

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

Minor: Fire/Fire injury and Drug use

jjjreads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Classism, Colonisation, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Dysphoria, Eating disorder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Murder, Medical trauma, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Car accident, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Police brutality, Self harm, Terminal illness, Kidnapping, and Mass/school shootings

Moderate: Alcohol, Animal death, Deadnaming, Excrement, Animal cruelty, Cursing, Death of parent, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Hate crime, and Vomit

Minor: Abortion, Car accident, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, and Xenophobia

relin's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional medium-paced

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Toxic friendship, Medical content, Death, Gun violence, Murder, Cursing, Violence, Blood, and Body horror

Moderate: Alcohol, Genocide, War, Police brutality, Panic attacks/disorders, Medical trauma, Self harm, Outing, Fire/Fire injury, and Drug use

Minor: Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Cannibalism

iviarelle's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

As much as Harrow the Ninth (the book) sometimes felt like an impenetrable puzzle box on the first read, Nona's life was never particularly opaque to me. Sure, there are questions adjacent to her, in fact all of the questions are adjacent to her, but I never felt frustrated by the way the information was withheld, even though the structure is very similar to Harrow's book went.

On a related note, I think it's an incredible achievement that Muir split this book off from Alecto the Ninth, where it was supposed to have just been the first third-to-half of the book, without making it FEEL like an incomplete story. Maybe part of that is down to how different Harrow felt from Gideon, setting us up for each book to be a slightly disjointed story about different but related characters within this world. Either way, nothing about this book is a disappointment, and the split point isn't as jarring as they often are when books are torn in half like this.

It's hard to say much more than that without spoilers. I'm so pleased with how this one played out, even with the questions I don't feel have satisfactory answers yet, and I'm looking intensely forward to Alecto.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Vomit, Colonisation, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Animal death, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Chronic illness, Eating disorder, Medical content, War, Blood, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Addiction, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Religious bigotry, Alcohol, Bullying, Drug use, Deadnaming, Grief, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicidal thoughts, Cancer, and Forced institutionalization

Minor: Gaslighting

uranaishi's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, Car accident, Confinement, Death, Eating disorder, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, and War

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Religious bigotry, Child death, Cursing, Police brutality, Terminal illness, Gore, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Medical content, Genocide, Mental illness, Animal death, Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic friendship, Xenophobia, Chronic illness, and Death of parent

Minor: Trafficking, Vomit, Abandonment, Body horror, Child abuse, Alcohol, Bullying, Drug use, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexual content, and Transphobia