Reviews tagging 'Stalking'

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

12 reviews

unbansheed's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious 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

I had such a great time reading this book. The start was a little rough, but once I got into the rhythm everything fell into place nicely. The pacing was great, I loved the mysterious aura of Canaan house and most of all I loved the voice of our POV character. Gideon is such a unique main character, it was so refreshing to read something so different. I also really liked all the secondary characters; the awful teens were a highlight for me. 
Also have to talk about Ianthe, cause she was such a show stealer. Her big reveal scene was incredible, I adore this cannibalistic girl. She's so deranged I need to study her under a microscope.

The ending felt earned and really satisfying to me
it was heartbreaking, but in a good way. From the start we get this tragic hero aura from Gideon and her entanglement with Harrow was amazing to witness, it's obvious she'e going to sacrifice herself for harrow, but it still hurt to watch. I loved it.
I can't wait to read more from this series.

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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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lunarkris's review against another edition

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dark 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

5.0


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its_vendetta's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious 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

WHAT.

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sabrina_marvil's review against another edition

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challenging dark 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? Yes

3.0

Wrong.

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vintovka's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

First impression, just finished it the night before.

GtN has a very strong beginning. I love the tactic of giving zero exposition. It makes you instantly intrigued in trying to figure out what is even going on with all these people, and also makes you focus on the characters and their dynamics more, since it's the only thing you somewhat understand. These are very strong and eye-catching from the very beginning. GtN has about fifteen characters who are all in some way relevant to the plot, and they're all delightfully distinguishable and colourful. 

Gideon is pretty standard as far as heroes of the story go, but she's very likeable. Empathetic, rebellious, moves before she thinks, has mysterious origins; I've seen it all before, but Gideon manages to sold me on these concepts once again through sheer force of her personality.  She works best with Harrow, Gideon's relationship with her is the backbone of the whole book.

I love unreliable narrators as much as the next guy, but this particular rendition of it left me a little unsatisfied. For like, half a book Gideon has no idea what is going on and just stumbles around, getting into situations, while you see glimpses of something you don't grasp happening in the distance. The final twist left me absolutely dissapointed, and the book was saved only by the last thirty pages. GtN reads very much like a book that's supposed to bloom only during rereading, which I don't particularly appreciate.

In general, GtN is a good fundament for a series, in the sense that I will be buying the next book. The only thing is I'm not sure I will like it that much.

((also lol russian translation sucks ass, why are the originals so expensive man))

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nishidake's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0


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wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

At the end of this book I experienced emotional damage and I fully expect it to make me cry again on re-reading in the future.

I went into this book knowing almost nothing beyond the tag line of Lesbian Necromancers in Space and that it was genre-bending for sci-fi and fantasy.  That was enough to sell me on reading it, even though I heard mixed things.

Did it deliver on those premises?  Mostly.  There are characters that identified as women and showed attraction/flirted with others that also identified as women, some of those characters were also necromancers.  With regards to being in space, there is very limited space shuttle travel, so I don't know that I would really quantify it that way, though there is ample room for that to change for the future in the series.

This book was indeed a crossover between sci-fi and fantasy in that it involved a technologically advanced civilization (space travel, and such) but with the deep roots of necromancy that almost took it into dark academia territory.  The necromancers are all obsessed in learning new theorems/spells and figuring out things in their specializations, and there are also trials they have to pass and mysteries to solve before they can advance.

There's a lot of tension because it is a competition and you don't really begin to understand the stakes until Act II and then the full whammy hits you near the end.

Also, I feel like I have a conspiracy theory based on the epilogue/info peppered throughout the book so click for spoilers, I guess:
Okay, so Gideon did not die with all the other children even though she was close to the vents for 10 minutes and her parents were hella scared about that.  In the epilogue, the Emperor says they couldn't retrieve Camilla (who was last seen alive) or Gideon's bodies so what if Harrow has Gideon's soul, but like, the body/vessel is still alive?  And Camilla managed to be resourceful because she definitely is wicked smart and they escaped the First planet...?  Or hid until they left?  I dunno.  Maybe I just don't want Gideon to be dead because her gay panic was so relatable.  And everyone else.  I loved the Fourth teens with their perpetual embarrassment and the Fifth cav Magnus was so sweet...
 

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punkrobots's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense
  • 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? It's complicated

5.0


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booking_along's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious sad 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

4.25

If my heart had a dick you would kick it.


Gideon was one of the best characters to read about. She’s one of those characters that are just a joy to read. 
even though with Gideon, it’s a bit strange to say that, not only on regards of the story itself, but also her character which is just not a joyful character at all. 

She’s a snarky ball of sarcasm, deadly and stab happy and would fight a blanket if it looked at her either too long or in a funny way.

But at the same time she’s incredibly caring and loving, friendly and buried deep under all that quick snark she clearly likes people. 

so i just enjoyed her and how the story was told with her voice. 

the plot itself was good. 
honestly it was very chaotic and for 99% of the book it feels like nobody including the author actually knew where it was going and if anything will ever make sense or if there even is an explanation to everything. 
and for a lot of things there are never real and logical explanations given. 


the murder mysteries and strange puzzles and what it all means are interesting, but  i am not sure if i enjoyed it or was just happy once the story finally got over those sections and moved on to trying to short through what’s going on overall. 

also the constant thing of nobody being and doing what they were or said to be… it was a lot. 

and at the end… there kinda is one that makes some resemblance of sense, so there is that i guess? 
what i mean by that it is that there are some resemblance of tries given to explain what’s happening through this book ins own ways. but even those are chaotic and leave a lot more question then answers are given. 
also the end is a lot of action to the point where i just wanted it to come to an end somehow because i was getting bored with the kind of fights given. 


honestly this story is build on the characters and the writing style itself and less on the actual plot and/or logic or really any kind of connectable sense. 


the actual ending ending of this book through? 
i am not sure if i want throw something, cry, rip the book or either reread it right away or go on to the next one or never touch this series again. 

i am frustrated and sad and the same amounts of disbelief and shock that the author actual did that.

which to be fair is just part of the entire range of emotions i went through while reading the book. 


i enjoyed this book. a lot. 
but i also kind of hate it? 
which is interesting. not sure i ever raged loved a book before? wasn’t even aware sich a thing could happen. 


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