A review by elizmoe
Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Tamsyn Muir, meet me in the pit. So I can give you a <i>hug</i>. And then sue you for emotional damages. 

i'm screaming, i'm crying, i'm throwing up even more than harrow in the first 5 chapters of this book. gideon and harrow have forever altered my brain chemistry. i understand that these books are perhaps not for everyone, but they are definitely for <i>me</i>; every reality-bending, viscerally disgusting, brow-furrowing-inducing moment of this stupid lesbian necromancer and her stupider lesbian cavalier were for me, and i am wretchedly grateful. 

too early to say for sure, but this book may have ruined me for other books? we'll see, but i have a bad feeling that anything else i will read that contains any of the following:

necromancy
swordplay
space
nonlinear storytelling
unreliable narrator(s)
enemy lesbians

will just leave me wondering why that book can't be her*. 

*the locked tomb series

also the payoff of this book is CRAZY. if you are like 20% through and not seeing the vision and considering DNF, i urge you to carry on even if the 500 pages feel daunting. you won't believe your eyes when shit starts coming together, because so many pieces do. even pieces that don't, i am confident will be explained in the next two books, as there were many many setups from book 1 that made for some incredible reveals in this book. 

i have so much more to say about this book but most of it is yelling. even the occasional ill-advised meme inserts couldn't mar this book for me! and that's pretty insane!!

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