Reviews with content warning for Suicide attempt - Gideon la Nona

Reviews tagging 'Suicide attempt'

Gideon la Nona by Tamsyn Muir

64 reviews

clovetra's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

welcome gideon the ninth, you are now one of my elite employees (/ref).

i am broken. i am shattered. i am changed.

i am but a simple lesbian.

i’ve been sitting here for an hour contemplating how to rate this. on one hand, the concepts were so frustrating to comprehend, and it was to the point where after every chapter i was consulting a guide because i wasn’t sure i was actually grasping what was going on, which made all 479 pages incredibly frustrating. on the other hand, this book is all i could think about. usually to fall asleep i employ a video essay of something that’s my special interest — recently only until dawn has been scratching that itch. but my body was craving a gideon the ninth video essay. all i could think about was this book.

needless to say, i can overlook how annoying this book was to read at times simply for the grip it had on me.

i love griddle. what an insane fuckjng nickname. i adore her, her inner monologue, her relationships, her reactions, her one liners, everything.

i would die for the sixth, and harrowhark baby im coming for you in the next series hold on for me.

the plot was fucking insane. who decides “yeah the book i’m writing is about sapphics in space who are necromancers and also there’s a lowkey murder mystery plot with some romantic undertones and high fantasy oh and yeah did you forget we’re in space. and necromancers.” like ?????? i want what muir was having when conjuring up the idea of the locked tomb. absolutely batshit insane. and i wouldn’t have it any other way.

i don’t really know what i was expecting from the plot but im very pleasantly surprised by what it ended up being! even more surprised as i got a semi-big spoiler and yet it really didn’t spoil shit for me! like the spoiler did hold a lot of weight in the plot but because so much happens in this story it was so easy to focus on the other reveals happening simultaneously.

the fight scenes were a bit hard to follow especially when the necros are involved, and the trials were so fucking confusing to my mind. but honestly i was so invested in the characters, mainly the ninth & the sixth, that i can’t put this book any lower than 5-stars.

i’m gonna go stare at griddlehark fan art for the next 3 hours sobbing. also this book gave me such a big fucking headache oh my god reading my neuroscience textbooks is easier.

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wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

I don't know what happened to my original review but this time was a re-read and I still loved every moment of it.

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onyxkat's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The writing had a Douglas Adams-like way of describing fantastical events through the mundane. I also appreciated the regular use of modern day slang like "salty" and "that's what she said," especially in the context of a story a million years in the future.

Gideon herself is a really fun main character. I enjoyed learning about the world through her eyes; it was certainly a case where the novel had an unreliable narrator, but it was also a really fun unreliability.

Considering the grimness of a world full of necromancy, I thought the overall vibe of the book was very fun. Gideon's penchant for humor balanced out the horror nicely.

I also thought the execution of the enemies-to-lovers trope was done EXCELLENTLY. I was completely convinced that Gideon and Harrow we obsessed with hating each other so much that it wrapped back around.

Overall- I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would and immediately wanted to pick up the next one.

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cryptofauna's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-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

3.75

im honestly unclear on how i feel about this one?? its like a 3.75-4 but im not sure which one. it was def not what i was expecting but generally i had a good time? WAYY more dense than i was expecting for what i had heard about this book, and i had a really hard time keeping all the characters straight, especially because they would alternate between last names and first names when referring to them and would also switch out the order of if their last name comes first or whatever.
super interesting plot and story and it was certainly really innovative but it almost had too much happening. if i read this in print i could have been referring to the glossary and the overview at the beginning but on kindle its kind of difficult and takes up way more time so i was in the dark for like. most of it
i didn't love the ending but i see how it was being set up throughout for the most part (mystery and baddie reveal wise), but generally i am annoyed that

she died??? it kind of ruins the whole enemies to lovers thing i really thought they were teasing (THERES NO LOVERS), and them just not being able to find her body afterwards is so stupid to me.

they're literally all necromancers but in order for ur big dramatic moment to work you just have to conveniently make her disappear?? frustrating
the characters were interesting when i could actually tell who was who, it has a cool magic system and is written in a way that can be a little work to get through but it was also funny and having it from gideon's perspective adds some much needed levity to a lot of these scenarios. i was invested in them as characters and as a couple and i felt like the relationship between harrow and gideon was pretty well set up. i don't love enemies to lovers because it doesn't always make sense to me ("u hated each other why r u doing this") but their interactions felt pretty realistic and not like things were just happening to happen.
it wasn't what i was hoping for or expecting but it was good i think

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lifeinsherds's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.5

The ONLY reason this doesn't have a full 5 stars for me is because there are a LOT of characters in this book. But Muir has a list at the beginning which character belongs to which house. I absolutely sprinted through the last like 80 pages.

Tamsyn Muir has SUCH a strong voice as Gideon. She is loyal and flawed and weak and strong. UGH. this may be a book I wish I could read for the first time again.

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fairyollie's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I wish I liked this book more than I did. there is a lot I could say, both good and bad, but I'll try and keep it short and spoiler-free as possible. it was very ambitious, to say the least, as a gothic, sci-fi, fantastical, dystopian, magical, necromantic story.

Pacing: the pacing was weird and difficult. the plot does not start until about 45-50% through the story, and I found it very difficult to keep reading until then.
Humor: there were a LOT of references to memes and very-2016 humor. I was not a fan of this, because abrupt jokes, comments, and references to memes were so out of place for the setting. it also makes it difficult for a book to age well when using humor and jokes from a specific, short-lived time period.
Characters: I did not particularly care for or find myself rooting, relating to, and enjoying almost any of the characters! their motives, their rationale, their background, were lost or not fully fleshed-out, and certain choices seemed random. just didn't mesh for me.
Setting: as said above, the first half of the book was slow, and it was not used for world-building or introducing the characters or lore at all. I think more world-building, to better understand who everyone is, what's going on, purpose, lore, how the mecromatic magic system works, anything - just more of why/what/how, would have really elevated the book more.
also, this is entirely my bad, as it's literally a book about necromancers, but I don't handle gore very well lol. not a book flaw but a personal skill issue!

I wanted to like this book, and was planning to read this for a very long time, but it just fell short for me. I would recommend this to others, as I know there are many people who would (and do!) enjoy this, but for myself, it was just a difficult, bit juvenile, time. I am happy I finally had the chance to read it, and wish I had enjoyed it more!

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valerian_honeybee's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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balletbookworm's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-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

A long-overdue re-read for Elizabeth @ Plant Based Bride's book club.

Now, I did have to kick the audiobook up to 1.75x speed because the narrator was So Slow (look, why is she reading that slow? actual humans do not speak that slowly) and Gideon's dialog snaps off the page. If Guy Ritchie movies existed in the Locked Tomb universe, Gideon would absolutely imagine herself in Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Necromancers. (I have jokes! Lol)

I'd forgotten so much about this book, most importantly that Gideon and Harrow are so TEENAGERY towards each other, like a Mean Girls/Stepsiblings mashup. (If this series were starting in 2024, someone somewhere would try to make this a YA simply because Gideon and Harrow are actual teenagers and it's NOT A YA AT ALL. Whew.) And that really does make their eventual recognition that maybe they are friends and do need each other to survive that much better.

I've already got my library hold lined up for <i>Harrow</i> and then <i> Nona</i> bc I'd held off on Nona until I got a series re-read done, so this is the time!

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adbooks20's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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book_snail's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Genuinely can't stress this more: go into this blind, and expect your experience of the book to be unique to what you might've heard online. It's really hard to describe what this story is actually about, so it's best to experience it firsthand and draw your own conclusions :)

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