A review by thirstkirst
Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

4.0

"Do not fucking ask me for information. I could not be more lost right now."


This book kicked my ass. It fought me every step of the way. It has two extremely muscular arms with meaty balled up fists, and those fists just kept punching me in the head over and over and over again. Then, miraculously, after weeks of this abuse - I’d long since given up asking for it to show me mercy - the book stopped hitting me.

Bury me next to you in that unmarked grave, Joy. We knew that was the only hope we ever had–that we would live to see it through … and pray for our own cessation. Oh, we’ll still hate each other, my dear, we have hated each other too long and too passionately to stop … but my bones will rest easy next to your bones.


I’ve never felt so challenged by a book. Especially a sequel! A world that I thought I had come to slightly understand in the first book! I figured, if anything, this book would at least be a little easier to get into because I had a base layer of understanding. I was so naive to think I knew anything at all. This sequel is written in second person, first person, and third person. All the mentionings of the first book are not what actually happened, Harrow is remembering everything wrong. It’s unbelievably confusing. As with the first book, there’s all the necromancy magic/science shit that can be super difficult to follow sometimes.

“There had been another girl who grew up alongside Harrow—but she had died before Harrow was born.”


But. BUT.

Harrow the Ninth is a work of art.

“You sawed open your skull rather than be beholden to someone. You turned your brain into soup to escape anything less than 100 percent freedom. You put me in a box and buried me rather than give up your own goddamned agenda. Harrowhark, I gave you my whole life and you didn’t even want it.”


I think that Tamsyn Muir (the author) is a genius. She’s brave. Bold. Unique. Hilarious. Intelligent. Creative. Out of this fucking world. If you want a glimpse of how she truly writes, please click to view the quote below. It’s fascinating. Tagged for spoilers, but it’s not truly a spoiler if you don’t know the context of the situation.

SpoilerIt happened in an instant. It happened over a myriad. A wet red construct knitted itself back together, and then burbling out of its centre, a hot gush of pale pink meat and nerve—a lumpen squirting of organ, deep soft violets, fat-stippled cerises, coils of intestine and gentle buff-shaded curves of bowel—white pops in each eye socket, bumps of sandy pearl stuff filling in behind—the twitch of a wet red tongue in a mandible spurting teeth. The percussive, throbbing urgency of a heart, quickly hidden with a puff of bronchiae sliding into big soft lung shapes—abruptly muscled over, then dressed with belated modesty in skin—the skin shading over with a fine coating of hair at the arms, at the chest—dark hair undulating over the eyebrows, making wrinkles and ruffles over the skull. The hot white jelly of the eyes was dyed black as though oily drops had been squeezed into it—purling over in black, shining wavelets, staining it true nitid ebony—the white rings bobbing up to the surface as though they’d been ducked into the water, each matte black pupil resting in the central point.


I’m not going to pretend that I understood everything in this book. I think that even the biggest fan of this series couldn’t fully grasp it. But there’s SO MUCH here that you don’t have to understand it all. Just buckle in, keep reading, and enjoy the ride.

“Well, I tried, and therefore no one should criticize me.”


The rich characters, the witty dialogue, the mystery/suspense, the dealing with loss and grief, the absolute endless pop culture references, the fucking memes - those are what keep me going. I laughed. I cringed. I cried. Please note, it would take multiple re-reads of this series to even begin to pick up on all references that Muir has included. It’s insane.

“Is that the truth, or the truth you tell yourself?” asked Augustine.
“What is the difference?” said God.


Do I think that the ending is worth the beating this book gave me? Yes. Was it 100% worth these black eyes and a fractured skull, though? No. I could have done with a *touch* more. I was so close to being fully satisfied, but I didn’t quite make it there.

If you truly enjoyed Gideon the Ninth, I would recommend that you give this second installment a try. This book is definitely not for everyone, and I would understand why literally anyone would not be able to get through it.

"I kissed you and later I would kiss him too before I understood what you were, and all three of us lived to regret it - but when I am in heaven I will remember your mouth, and when you roast down in hell I think you will remember mine."


I must give it a high rating with a good review. It may be one of the most difficult books I’ve ever read, but I am thoroughly impressed by Muir. I can’t help it. I love it.

“I’m not fucking dead,” I said, which wasn’t even true, and I was choking up; everything I’d ever done, everything I’d ever been through, and I was choking up.

And the Emperor of the Nine Houses, the Necrolord Prime, stood from his chair to look at you–at me; looked at my face, looked at your face, looked at my eyes in your face. It took, maybe, a million myriads. The static in your ears resolved into wordless screaming. His expression was just–gently quizzical; mildly awed.

“Hi, Not Fucking Dead,” he said. “I’m Dad.”


Happy reading!