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Harrow the Ninth
finally starting to get caught up on writing up my Hugo reading! I hope!
4/5. Well. That was a WILD ride.
-I had managed to osmose beforehand that Harrow was crazier than Gideon the Ninth, and before reading I was all, "how is that even possible?" Heh, I learned how that was possible!
-I also realized during the course of this book that Muir has apparently tapped into some deep and primal urge I have to be... utterly confused?? I spent almost all of the book being completely confused and loving it! though it was because I did trust Muir to clear everything up by the end. I feel like someone's review said that the whole book was like an extended trust fall (sorry, I forget who said that) and... yeah.
-the worldbuilding continues to be a weird blend of "watch how much I absolutely do not care about worldbuilding" and "watch how much I do care about worldbuilding" but bothered me less this time around because I'd had a whole previous book to turn my brain off in this regard
-I live under a rock so the memes didn't bother me, and I loved all the Biblical references!
-heh, I actually did not realize that Harrow had modified her own memory, even though now it seems like it should have been glaringly obvious, mostly because I guess I have spent too much time in fic AUs and was busy postulating alternate universe scenarios
-I am most impressed that Muir got me so into Ortus, which I never would have imagined possible after reading Gideon. And I was so moved by the triumph of bad poetry, which is a sentence that I would not have imagined being able to type non-ironically before reading this book (but I do mean it non-ironically!)
-speaking of Ortus, I spent the first half of the book complaining to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ase that it was so annoying that two characters were named Ortus, but I guessed it was just one of those things that happened (HI every historical fandom ever!) and thus totally missed that it was actually a CLEW, well done Muir
-like several other reviews I've read, I just really adore about this book that it cares a lot about every single character, including characters that were seemingly throwaway characters in the previous book (like Ortus!) and has just this deep compassion for everyone
-is Alecto going to be even crazier than this one? Idk but I am so looking forward to the ride! Especially given the reveal that the Emperor assured Harrow she couldn't actually have opened the Locked Tomb because only the Emperor's blood could do that... only that was before we knew that Gideon was the Emperor's kid. Has the Emperor figured this out??
4/5. Well. That was a WILD ride.
-I had managed to osmose beforehand that Harrow was crazier than Gideon the Ninth, and before reading I was all, "how is that even possible?" Heh, I learned how that was possible!
-I also realized during the course of this book that Muir has apparently tapped into some deep and primal urge I have to be... utterly confused?? I spent almost all of the book being completely confused and loving it! though it was because I did trust Muir to clear everything up by the end. I feel like someone's review said that the whole book was like an extended trust fall (sorry, I forget who said that) and... yeah.
-the worldbuilding continues to be a weird blend of "watch how much I absolutely do not care about worldbuilding" and "watch how much I do care about worldbuilding" but bothered me less this time around because I'd had a whole previous book to turn my brain off in this regard
-I live under a rock so the memes didn't bother me, and I loved all the Biblical references!
-heh, I actually did not realize that Harrow had modified her own memory, even though now it seems like it should have been glaringly obvious, mostly because I guess I have spent too much time in fic AUs and was busy postulating alternate universe scenarios
-I am most impressed that Muir got me so into Ortus, which I never would have imagined possible after reading Gideon. And I was so moved by the triumph of bad poetry, which is a sentence that I would not have imagined being able to type non-ironically before reading this book (but I do mean it non-ironically!)
-speaking of Ortus, I spent the first half of the book complaining to
ase that it was so annoying that two characters were named Ortus, but I guessed it was just one of those things that happened (HI every historical fandom ever!) and thus totally missed that it was actually a CLEW, well done Muir-like several other reviews I've read, I just really adore about this book that it cares a lot about every single character, including characters that were seemingly throwaway characters in the previous book (like Ortus!) and has just this deep compassion for everyone
-is Alecto going to be even crazier than this one? Idk but I am so looking forward to the ride! Especially given the reveal that the Emperor assured Harrow she couldn't actually have opened the Locked Tomb because only the Emperor's blood could do that... only that was before we knew that Gideon was the Emperor's kid. Has the Emperor figured this out??
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The way Harrow kept me more off-balance than any second book in a trilogy has ever done was just so great. I am not sure which one I prefer, actually -- Gideon has so much loyalty kink, which is so My Thing, but then so is the twistiness of Harrow My Thing.
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