Elle (ellexamines)'s Reviews > Gideon the Ninth

“One flesh, one end, bitch.”

I genuinely think about this book all the time, and I just need to say that this is the most upset I’ve been by an ending to a book in several years. When I completed it I started yelling audibly and my roommate, who was also awake, I believe may have become genuinely concerned for my sanity. Gideon the Ninth looked at me and said I could make her worse, and then it did, and it’s incurable. The gay people at my college own four collective copies of this and we pass it around to first years like a mini cult indoctrination and you now the worst part? It works.

I cannot talk about the things about this book that make me genuinely crazy without getting into spoilers, so here is my short pitch: Lesbian necromancers in space, except the space part isn’t that relevant. In reality, it’s a And-Then-There-Were-None-esque murder mystery in which the two main characters are a buff lesbian with a sword and the most fucked up woman you have ever seen in your life. You will not solve the murder mystery. Gideon, the main character, makes the worst puns I have ever heard and it’s fantastic. I cannot even begin to explain how compelled I am by Harrow. No one in this book can be normal for more than ten seconds at a time. At least one meme will be quoted per book. I have never read anything more homoerotic in my life than the pool scene. I laughed. I also cried a lot. You should read it.

Here are a few more detailed thoughts that I can give: Tamsyn Muir is genuinely fantastic at crafting a building narrative. You do not know how invested you are in Gideon the Ninth until the hits start coming, and by then Muir is ready to hit you with a punch. The first half is solid and interesting, but the last hundred pages are fully the best hundred pages of any book I have read in my life. (And it helps that her action writing is fantastic.)

The main characters and side characters alike are so interesting. Harrow has the single most compelling backstory of any character I have had the delight of reading about. She has so many problems and I love her. Some highlights of the wider cast include Judith of the Second House; Ianthe and Coronabeth, incredibly abnormal twin heirs to the Third House; Palamedes and Camilla of the Sixth House, the latter of whom is honestly the most normal person in this book; and Dulcinea and Protesilaus, also normal people of the Seventh House. I am also obsessed with Gideon because she has just… the funniest narrative voice. Some examples?

“I need to be inside you,” Harrowhark bellowed over the din.
“Okay, you’re not even trying,” said Gideon.
“Did you know that if you put the first three letters of your last name with the first three letters of your first name, you get ‘Sex Pal’?”

Speaking of which I am. Embarrassingly invested. In the dynamic between Gideon and Harrowhark. I think about them all the time, by which I mean I’ve spent several days of my life consumed by thinking about them. I cannot say anything else at this time for legal reasons but just now that as if we are ever speaking I am pretending to be invested in our conversation but I am actually thinking about Gideon and Harrow.

___
SPOILER SECTION
gay people: (view spoiler)[

“I’ve lived my whole wretched life at your mercy, yours alone, and God knows I deserve to die at your hand. You are my only friend. I am undone without you.”

Okay. Listen. I think there might be something wrong with me but this dynamic genuinely kills me. The desire in my heart for them to tenderly kiss on the lips is like a physical urge it’s tearing me apart. This might have been my joker origin story. (hide spoiler)]

about harrow: (view spoiler)[I think “born a war crime” is a genuinely fascinating allegory for childhood trauma. Harrow has essentially been carrying the guilt for seventeen years of knowing her existence means the death of 200 innocents, and she blames herself totally and utterly, but she does not have a choice in that. (hide spoiler)]

the twists: (view spoiler)[The true nature of lyctors genuinely haunts me I think about that reveal all the time. And also Dulcinea being Cytherea is truly a banger. I love Ianthe being duplicitous, I love how many moving parts there are to this book, I love that you don’t really suspect the right people and when you do it’s never for the right things. (hide spoiler)]

spoilers for harrow the ninth: (view spoiler)[

“I have spent your life trying to make you regret that you weren’t dead, all because—I regretted I wasn’t! I ate you alive, and you have the temerity to tell me that you’re sorry?”

HNNNG I just noticed the foreshadowing of this. Harrow I don’t know how to tell you this but in the next book she is going to fully on page say that all she ever wanted you to do was eat her. which is by the way one of the absolute craziest lines I’ve ever read in my life I cannot stop thinking about it. (hide spoiler)]

In conclusion. I think about this book all the time. I have been getting all of my friends to obsess over it and I think you should hop on this train, personally.

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