Book Reviews by Author

Gideon the Ninth

by Tamsyn Muir
  • Five stars
    Read this book right now & tell all your friends!
    Maybe I'm just a little starved for words-on-a-page content since it's been a month since my last read, but I finished this book almost obsessively over the course of two days. Also, it's about lesbian space necromancy okay, kind of, which says a lot about me and my tastes. I am not ashamed in the slightest. When I looked at some other reviews for this book the first in a trilogy, I noticed that it was very polarizing - there were a lot of five star reviews, but also a lot that hovered around the two-three star rating. The main character, Gideon, makes witty quip after witty quip, even during the book's intense moments, which some people definitely would find annoying! However, as someone that tries to laugh off negative emotions as well, the juxtaposition between these two factors makes the scene even more striking in my opinion. The pacing, too, is very fast, and I only remember a few times where we got some breathing room. I like this personally, but again it could be overwhelming for some people. A few other nitpicks: The plot isn't communicated the clearest and it can be picked apart, there are a LOT of character names to remember it can be difficult, and soooome of the plot points were predictable but not all of them! by the end of the book it felt like someone had haymakered me in the solar plexus - is 'haymakered' even a word?. Finally, the nerd in my LOVED the hard-magic necromancy system - It was such a cool execution and expansion on previously-established necromancy tropes. It literally felt like it was being continuously elaborated upon in every line of dialogue, which was awesome. Definitely bookshelf worthy!
    Victoria H Grade 12
    07/01/2022