Scan barcode
A review by toggle_fow
Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
OKAY. I went into this book super hype because I loved Gideon.
After the first 6 chapters that was a little dampened because I had not even the first fragment of an idea what was going on. It's all very woo-ooh I'm waking up from a drugged stupor at the beginning, and you think it's going to come clearer after Harrow gets her mind on straight, but it doesn't. After the first 20 chapters I still had not even a CRUMB of a clue what was going on.
We're still in the same world, with a lot of the same characters, but things are wrong. This is not the same story we knew. It was a little bit mysterious and a little bit frustrating. Muir is still the same memelord, and her prose is still unexpected and hilarious; this is, honestly, most of what kept me going throughout the deepening confusion.
I've seen some people say that Gideon was confusing. To me, Gideon was relatively straightforward, and if you were one of the people that thought it was confusing, all I can say is good luck. You have to make it literally seventy-five percent of the way through this book in order for the first plot mysteries to start being unraveled. Even after finishing the whole thing, I had to read the entire TVTropes page for this book before I really got what was going on.
The rest of this review will have spoilers because I've already said all I can say without them.
The second-person narration didn't bother me that much. It did take me half of the book to figure out it was Gideon, though. The narrator called Harrow a "sad sack" one time and then suddenly I Realized.
I DID enjoy the weird hilarity of the interactions between John and Mercy and Augustine. They were just the right mix of silly and petty + amoral and way too powerful to be the most interesting kind of human monster. I especially liked John and his reasonable, least-toxic-cast-member, down-to-earth persona, set up against the dissonance of his evil. Very fun.
I do have to downgrade the star rating of this, mostly because of 1) the absolute baffling nature of the book and 2) Harrow is just less fun than Gideon. Harrow is a good character, Muir's tone and exploration of her was great, but you just can't get around it. As soon as Gideon started showing up for real, the entire experience of the book changed. Like, WOW. Yes. This is what I've been missing.
I honestly can't even guess at the content of the next book given the ending of this one. There are frankly a stunning amount of things I'm still confused on, and I can only hope for some answers.
After the first 6 chapters that was a little dampened because I had not even the first fragment of an idea what was going on. It's all very woo-ooh I'm waking up from a drugged stupor at the beginning, and you think it's going to come clearer after Harrow gets her mind on straight, but it doesn't. After the first 20 chapters I still had not even a CRUMB of a clue what was going on.
We're still in the same world, with a lot of the same characters, but things are wrong. This is not the same story we knew. It was a little bit mysterious and a little bit frustrating. Muir is still the same memelord, and her prose is still unexpected and hilarious; this is, honestly, most of what kept me going throughout the deepening confusion.
I've seen some people say that Gideon was confusing. To me, Gideon was relatively straightforward, and if you were one of the people that thought it was confusing, all I can say is good luck. You have to make it literally seventy-five percent of the way through this book in order for the first plot mysteries to start being unraveled. Even after finishing the whole thing, I had to read the entire TVTropes page for this book before I really got what was going on.
The rest of this review will have spoilers because I've already said all I can say without them.
The second-person narration didn't bother me that much. It did take me half of the book to figure out it was Gideon, though. The narrator called Harrow a "sad sack" one time and then suddenly I Realized.
I DID enjoy the weird hilarity of the interactions between John and Mercy and Augustine. They were just the right mix of silly and petty + amoral and way too powerful to be the most interesting kind of human monster. I especially liked John and his reasonable, least-toxic-cast-member, down-to-earth persona, set up against the dissonance of his evil. Very fun.
I do have to downgrade the star rating of this, mostly because of 1) the absolute baffling nature of the book and 2) Harrow is just less fun than Gideon. Harrow is a good character, Muir's tone and exploration of her was great, but you just can't get around it. As soon as Gideon started showing up for real, the entire experience of the book changed. Like, WOW. Yes. This is what I've been missing.
I honestly can't even guess at the content of the next book given the ending of this one. There are frankly a stunning amount of things I'm still confused on, and I can only hope for some answers.
• Why is like, everyone in this book (except Harrow, bless her) having sex with everyone else in this book, even the people who are mortal enemies?
• IS THE TOMB UNLOCKED OR NOT? We know that the blood ward that kept John thinking that the tomb was inviolate is not actually so because of Gideon's Secret Origins. But as far as I know, Gideon never went into the tomb? Harrow did, and the blood ward should still have kept her out? Unless Gideon's mere presence on the planet neutralized the ward? Is the tomb unlocked NOW or is this just something that can happen in the future, now that we know about Gideon's parentage?
• Whomst the HECK is in the epilogue? I have to assume "Alecto," whoever that is, but whose body is Alecto in? Did Camilla achieve perfect Lyctorhood?
• WHY was the ghost of Wake haunting Harrow? Why was she trying so hard to kill her in the dreamscape? I get that she hates necromancers, but surely she had some bigger fish to fry given the setting than assassinating the weakest, newest Lyctor?
• Why did John lie about the nature of Lyctorhood in the first place? If he knew you could do it without killing your best friend (and therefore, presumably, attracting Resurrection Beasts all the time) what's the advantage of making everyone kill their best friend? If he can't be killed by Resurrection Beasts anyway, he hardly needs to trap his Lyctors into having to protect him. What's the motive?