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samevans's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
cherryjuicedarling's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
reflective
sad
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
4.0
eli_mageofpages's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
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? No
3.5
mainjain's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
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? It's complicated
5.0
dna_heligrace's review against another edition
3.0
Look I still don't really understand what happened in this book. It followed two of my favorite books released in the last decades, and it felt like a bit of a weak attempt to drag a story that was supposed to be in Alecto into a whole book by itself. I wanted to love it but I was mostly just confused. I think I just need to read it a second time. I did love Nona, and Noodle, and Camilla and Pyrrah, but things got weird quick with no explanation? Or maybe I just lack reading comprehension? But I finished this book feeling like I need to go read the Cliff notes and watch a bunch of YouTube videos of Tumblr book bloggers explaining to me what just went down.
Looking forward to Alecto though, hopefully it will make things more clear. And aside from my confusion about the plot, Muir really does have a beautiful way with words, and it had an almost poetic quality to it at times. Great worldbuilding and it was fun to have yet another setting very different from the previous two books.
Looking forward to Alecto though, hopefully it will make things more clear. And aside from my confusion about the plot, Muir really does have a beautiful way with words, and it had an almost poetic quality to it at times. Great worldbuilding and it was fun to have yet another setting very different from the previous two books.
wafflecake's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
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
beansandavocados's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
3genres's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
sad
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
* This review is for the series * I LOVED Gideon the Ninth. One of my favorite characters ever. (I would love to see a collaboration between Gideon and Murderbot.) I read the first two in the series back-to-back in 2021. Almost exactly two years later I got around to Nona. (I pre-ordered it and received it in May 2022 but took a while to read it.) In hindsight I should have re-read the first two books before starting the third. When Alecto comes out – ooo, looks like January! – I will definitely have to do a re-read.
So, Gideon was great and pretty straightforward. Harrow and Nona I found very confusing, I hope by design and not because I’m getting stupid.
sidekickyin's review against another edition
3.0
After all the praise I heaped on Gideon and Harrow the Ninth, Nona fell very short in my expectations.
There were two POVs, as was in Harrow, but the POVs in Nona were rather.... uninteresting. One, which most refer to as the "Gospels" gave the backstory of how God was created, which was rather interesting, but ultimately made God a rather boring figure. The next POV was from Nona's perspective, which I found even more boring.
The book could then be divided into two parts. Part 1: Nona plays at "house" and "school" with the cast. Part 2: The story goes back to being more of the typical Locked Tomb storyline readers are used to from the first two volumes. While I appreciate what Nona was trying to do as a whole, the execution was truly lacking this time for me personally. Lots of readers love Nona and the whole playing at house and school and the found family and friends schtick that took up nearly the first half of the novel. Personally, this was the most fucking boring and tedious part for me to get through and I could've cared less about the school friends. I honestly think they were pointless and completely unnecessary. I was also irked by the way Nona acted like a child. I get why this was done based on how she was found, but it really irritated me to no end and I really hate young adults acting too childish in any genre so Nona's cutesy act in this was causing more eye-rolling than I thought I'd ever do in this series. I just didn't get why this was done at all. It made no sense to me and I almost temporarily DNF'd this book because of it.
Luckily, just when I was at my limit of kiddie bullshit the plot actually got going again and Locked Tomb time came into play. However, that didn't necessarily make the second half make up for the annoying first half. When the plot started moving and the action became more frenetic, more and more plot conveniences seem to fall out of the woodwork. The Cam/Pal move was just... what?! How?! Is this ever explained much as to how the fuck that can happen when it hasn't in 10k years? Too much happening in the action segments in the last quarter of the book read like planet-aligned convenience and a tad too much "good luck" going on. Aka, it all reeked of Deus Ex Machina in a way I'd never expected of this series.
I thought there would be more sci-fi explanations for the more fantastical elements as was the case in the Gideon and to a lesser degree Harrow books. Palamedes is basically the token Explainer of the series and the fact that he didn't really explain shit in this and just hemmed and hawed at speculation didn't work. So when the Cam/Pal moment came it was more like a left-field fly ball that NO ONE saw coming for any sensible reason. Sure, it made a little sense after the fact as to why they did what they did, but the HOW was left hanging too much. I get that even with the super cryptic "gospels" we get the story of God and there's a good level of suspension of disbelief that needs to take place for any sci-fi/fantasy novel. However, the overly cryptic way that was handled felt a little too much like ass-pulling and floundering than any real semblance of giving a coherent tract for the reader to follow.
Muir obviously likes to leave breadcrumbs everywhere for the readers to follow, but this felt like she didn't even have an endpoint and just dumped the crumbs in piles instead of attempting to string them along because I just get the feeling she didn't even have much of a clue as to how this would end up. And I think that's the biggest problem. This felt too disorganized and too cryptic and too much like a story that would've been better off as side stories to the Locked Tomb than an integral part of the series progression. I have a strange feeling that when we finally get Alecto the Ninth, most of what happened in Nona will more or less feel completely irrelevant and like a side tangent that didn't really need to be written, but hey, it'd be a cool extra for the more hardcore fans.
There were two POVs, as was in Harrow, but the POVs in Nona were rather.... uninteresting. One, which most refer to as the "Gospels" gave the backstory of how God was created, which was rather interesting, but ultimately made God a rather boring figure. The next POV was from Nona's perspective, which I found even more boring.
The book could then be divided into two parts. Part 1: Nona plays at "house" and "school" with the cast. Part 2: The story goes back to being more of the typical Locked Tomb storyline readers are used to from the first two volumes. While I appreciate what Nona was trying to do as a whole, the execution was truly lacking this time for me personally. Lots of readers love Nona and the whole playing at house and school and the found family and friends schtick that took up nearly the first half of the novel. Personally, this was the most fucking boring and tedious part for me to get through and I could've cared less about the school friends. I honestly think they were pointless and completely unnecessary. I was also irked by the way Nona acted like a child. I get why this was done based on how she was found, but it really irritated me to no end and I really hate young adults acting too childish in any genre so Nona's cutesy act in this was causing more eye-rolling than I thought I'd ever do in this series. I just didn't get why this was done at all. It made no sense to me and I almost temporarily DNF'd this book because of it.
Luckily, just when I was at my limit of kiddie bullshit the plot actually got going again and Locked Tomb time came into play. However, that didn't necessarily make the second half make up for the annoying first half. When the plot started moving and the action became more frenetic, more and more plot conveniences seem to fall out of the woodwork. The Cam/Pal move was just... what?! How?! Is this ever explained much as to how the fuck that can happen when it hasn't in 10k years? Too much happening in the action segments in the last quarter of the book read like planet-aligned convenience and a tad too much "good luck" going on. Aka, it all reeked of Deus Ex Machina in a way I'd never expected of this series.
I thought there would be more sci-fi explanations for the more fantastical elements as was the case in the Gideon and to a lesser degree Harrow books. Palamedes is basically the token Explainer of the series and the fact that he didn't really explain shit in this and just hemmed and hawed at speculation didn't work. So when the Cam/Pal moment came it was more like a left-field fly ball that NO ONE saw coming for any sensible reason. Sure, it made a little sense after the fact as to why they did what they did, but the HOW was left hanging too much. I get that even with the super cryptic "gospels" we get the story of God and there's a good level of suspension of disbelief that needs to take place for any sci-fi/fantasy novel. However, the overly cryptic way that was handled felt a little too much like ass-pulling and floundering than any real semblance of giving a coherent tract for the reader to follow.
Muir obviously likes to leave breadcrumbs everywhere for the readers to follow, but this felt like she didn't even have an endpoint and just dumped the crumbs in piles instead of attempting to string them along because I just get the feeling she didn't even have much of a clue as to how this would end up. And I think that's the biggest problem. This felt too disorganized and too cryptic and too much like a story that would've been better off as side stories to the Locked Tomb than an integral part of the series progression. I have a strange feeling that when we finally get Alecto the Ninth, most of what happened in Nona will more or less feel completely irrelevant and like a side tangent that didn't really need to be written, but hey, it'd be a cool extra for the more hardcore fans.