A review by rowanbg
Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

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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