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A review by inuyasha
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
5.0
edit: re-read the back half of this to prep for nona soon and still so awestruck by this book..... all the foreshadowing i missed the first time!! aaa!!
my life is now marked as B.G. (before gideon) and A.G. (after gideon)
ok i will attempt a Real Review but i spent the past 24 hours shaking and crying over this book and not in like, the way ppl online are when they say they're "screaming" like i had a full body PHSYSICAL reaction to this book. i cannot recount the last time that happened, if ever. i want to beat tamsyn muir's ass
anyway. i don't even know what to say positively other than the ambition of this book... the way that this had more emotion and tenderness in it than most books ive read, ever, even with a sex joke on nearly every page. a sci-fi fantasy murder mystery that puts books from those genres independently to shame. this had better plot twists, red herrings, and cleverness than any thriller i've ever read. the combination of dense prose to sudden, contemporary humor would have pissed me off in any other book but muir writes so deftly and clearly has so much FUN with her work that it is infectious. i think - even if at the end of the day, this book wasn't your thing - you have a cracked out grinch heart to not at least have FUN reading this.
i don't even typically enjoy "ensemble" cast books and am usually annoyed by a surplus of side-characters, but i loved each and every character in this so deeply. it crept up on me, too, like suddenly i was splattering Real Actual Tears onto my copy over a side character i barely knew and i was like hello??????? what is this?
negatives:
- magic system and world very cool but you are dropped into this world with no explanation. like, not even as in there is no giant-ass wall of exposition like the SFF genre is known for, but as in there are not even breadcrumbs of explanation. you kind of have to just grin and bear it until it all starts making sense.
- because of this, this book is an absolute chore until somewhere around page 150, where i think it becomes un-put-down-able - and the pay off is so worth it.
- but to hang in for 150 pages is a HUGE ask, especially for people who have less time to read than me and a shot attention span.
my life is now marked as B.G. (before gideon) and A.G. (after gideon)
ok i will attempt a Real Review but i spent the past 24 hours shaking and crying over this book and not in like, the way ppl online are when they say they're "screaming" like i had a full body PHSYSICAL reaction to this book. i cannot recount the last time that happened, if ever. i want to beat tamsyn muir's ass
anyway. i don't even know what to say positively other than the ambition of this book... the way that this had more emotion and tenderness in it than most books ive read, ever, even with a sex joke on nearly every page. a sci-fi fantasy murder mystery that puts books from those genres independently to shame. this had better plot twists, red herrings, and cleverness than any thriller i've ever read. the combination of dense prose to sudden, contemporary humor would have pissed me off in any other book but muir writes so deftly and clearly has so much FUN with her work that it is infectious. i think - even if at the end of the day, this book wasn't your thing - you have a cracked out grinch heart to not at least have FUN reading this.
i don't even typically enjoy "ensemble" cast books and am usually annoyed by a surplus of side-characters, but i loved each and every character in this so deeply. it crept up on me, too, like suddenly i was splattering Real Actual Tears onto my copy over a side character i barely knew and i was like hello??????? what is this?
negatives:
- magic system and world very cool but you are dropped into this world with no explanation. like, not even as in there is no giant-ass wall of exposition like the SFF genre is known for, but as in there are not even breadcrumbs of explanation. you kind of have to just grin and bear it until it all starts making sense.
- because of this, this book is an absolute chore until somewhere around page 150, where i think it becomes un-put-down-able - and the pay off is so worth it.
- but to hang in for 150 pages is a HUGE ask, especially for people who have less time to read than me and a shot attention span.