A review by rowanbg
Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

dark funny medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix

3.5

I spoiled myself for this book and still had no idea what was going on half the time.
Okay but on a more serious note: this book is stylistically experimental, and the fact that it pulls it off most of the time is something that I do have to give it credit for. It would probably pull it off better if every other description wasn't a metaphor and if Muir had put down the thesaurus for half a second, but here we are. 
I will say that I'm an outlier in that the things that other people love are the things that I really don't. I think the memes will make the book age like milk-- dad jokes are eternal, but people in 10 years might not know about miette, or none pizza with left beef. I'm also not a fan of the Gideon/Harrow relationship. Spoilers for Gideon the Ninth-
I just don't believe that someone who has been abused and imprisoned her entire life would fall in faithful, self-sacrificial love with her jailer after seeing her improve after only a month
. And trust me, as a lesbian I am not quick to put down lesbians. There were a number of smaller things that I would like to see someone with more expertise than me talk about, mainly the portrayal of disability and race, because both of those felt weird. In the end, I'll probably read the final book in the trilogy to see how it resolves, but I'm not waiting for it with baited breath. 
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