A review by kitnotmarlowe
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

adventurous dark funny mysterious medium-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

5.0

all the relentless hype from everyone i know made me worried that when i read gideon the ninth, i would be underwhelmed. friends, romans, countrymen, i am delighted to report that this book blew my dick off. i'm sorry i cannot be normal about this and i also refuse to be normal. i buddy read with a friend and took about 11 pages of notes, wherein i made comparisons to: mary oliver, lotr, sweet smell of success (1957) dir, alexander mackendrick, angela carter's 'the lady of the house of love', two separate songs by the mountain goats, breakout single 'vampires will never hurt you' by my chemical romance, the lion in winter, the aeneid (and classical epic as a whole), twelfth night, bluebeard, and medieval ideas of chivalry. i broke out one of the three bibles i keep along with various religious paraphernalia in my 'catholic guilt drawer' under my bed so i could cross-reference a passage. i screamed and laughed out loud. during a fight scene i nearly through the book in horror. the majority of my in-text annotations read 'hot' or 'ok dyke'. the last chapter i kept saying 'this is the most romantic thing i've ever read--no THIS is the most ro-NO T H I S'. i was out here using my lit degree like there was an exam on lesbian necromancers worth 70% of my final grade and BY JOVE was i going to pass. in the days since i finished this book i experience unrelated thoughts on occasion like ships in the night. i don't even care that you can tell tazmuir started off in homestuck fanfic bc at least half the plot is gobbledygook while all the emotions are an absolute CRUCIBLE. this is genuinely such a rich text that must be so rewarding upon rereading and in conversation with the other two books. it's so creative and more feminist than a solid 75% of books that bill themselves as "feminist" for the promo but aren't actually concerned with issues of feminism. i cannot wait to read the other two books and indigo has zero copies of harrow available in either of the closest stores because someone somewhere is either looking out for my mental health or wants me to suffer endless torment. let's fucking GOOOOOO lesbians.