A review by clovetra
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

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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