emptyreadings 's review for:

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

4.0

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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“But when she was scared, she was a child again and she was more afraid of being a child again than anything else in her life- almost.”

“You don’t fear dying. You can tolerate pain. You are afraid that your life has incurred a debt that your death will not pay. You see death as a mistake.”

“Beloved, what were my eyes like?”

I love that she just makes soup???????? And that god is literally just a dude named John. The vibes of these characters together in the Mithraeum is giving Umbrella Academy and it fucking awesome. Also this is like a bio major’s wet dream. So much bone name dropping. The fact that we live in a fabricated history of Harrow’s hallucinatory existence is so frustrating and absolutely absurd but I kind of love it. It reminds me distantly of part 1 of manacled. The use of “you,” is daring and creative- a risk I genuinely appreciate. I frequently forget that there’s this sci-fi element of planets and electricity and traveling in space ships since so much of the modern is put to the wayside in this world of tradition, swords, and monarchy. The language is absolutely more of a horror narration than that of fantasy I compared to the first book and I think it lends well to Harrow’s dismal and grave attitudes. Also I’m so glad we see so much of Ianthe since book one really looks away from her and toward Coronabeth. All this regicide is frankly very exciting and the fact that John is gideons dad? But also Gideon the first thought HE was the father? Things are so MESSY I love it. Much like the beginning and the middle and the everything, the ending is confusing as fuck, however, not in a way that I didn’t understand what the author was doing, just in a way that I now have to trust the process even longer and hope that they’re cooking for this third book. 

This novel was creative and interesting, throwing everything at the wall and it somehow worked.