Harrow the Ninth (Locked Tomb Trilogy, 2)

Three things: 1. Tamsyn Muir's writing style is to die for 2. This book is gonna make you question everything you knew happened in [b:Gideon the Ninth|42036538|Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)|Tamsyn Muir|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546870952l/42036538._SY75_.jpg|60943229], which is really stressful, but in a good way 3. WHO WRITES MOST OF A BOOK IN SECOND PERSON AND MAKES ME LIKE IT?? Surprisingly, #3 is part of the reason for #1 (which I never thought possible). I normally can't stomach a second-person POV for more than a short story or a single chapter and as such thought that every book written in this way would be one I'd put down after the first few pages. But by being told in second-person POV, which stands in stark contrast to how [b:Gideon the Ninth|42036538|Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)|Tamsyn Muir|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546870952l/42036538._SY75_.jpg|60943229] was told and to how most books are told, this book starts off directly with the feeling that something is wrong. And soon enough the narrator confirms this by deviating sometimes subtly, sometimes not so subtly from the way things happened in the previous book. I found myself asking who of the two narrators was the unreliable one. More and more things don't add up, characters react in ways that suggests that it might be the current narrator that's unreliable, and you start to have theories about what happened between the two books and who the narrator is. You're most likely right, but the narrator will continue to make you doubt (at least that's what happened to me). When there are the shifts to third person narration, you'll find yourself relaxing, thinking it'll add up, but it still doesn't, now in a different way. And the other characters besides Harrow start saying along with you: "This is not how it happens." This is distressing, but all adds up to the picture that something went wrong after [b:Gideon the Ninth|42036538|Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)|Tamsyn Muir|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546870952l/42036538._SY75_.jpg|60943229] and you want to know what it is that went wrong. Besides portraying the wrongness and the distress of the situation Harrow finds herself in, the use of "you" makes one question if there is a complementary "me". Is this really just a narrative device to convey these feelings you're meant to feel with the protagonist, or is there more to this narration that's relevant to the plot. The reveal that there is a "me" and the later reveal of who they are, and that they're actually a first-person narrator was so well done. The delivery of it rendered it nearly more distressing than the lack of the "me" and "I" pronouns before, and I loved how we got gradually introduced to the idea, even if by then it was already clear that it was Gideon talking. I found the narration in [b:Gideon the Ninth|42036538|Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)|Tamsyn Muir|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546870952l/42036538._SY75_.jpg|60943229] hilarious, and even though Harrow the Ninth leans into the distress its main character is feeling, this remains and gets more pronounced towards the end. For all intents and purposes, half the humor shouldn't work though. Both books are so riddled with meme and internet culture references that I usually would get annoyed at and roll my eyes about, they were incorporated so naturally that during [b:Gideon the Ninth|42036538|Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)|Tamsyn Muir|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546870952l/42036538._SY75_.jpg|60943229] I discounted the possibility that these references were deliberate. Only in this book (when one of the characters said "none houses with left grief") did I have to face that no, these memes and internet culture things I noticed were in fact put there on purpose. As a conclusion, this may have just become my new favourite book and I can't wait for [b:Alecto the Ninth|39325106|Alecto the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #3)|Tamsyn Muir|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|60943284] to be published.

I feel like I did not even get half of it. Still, it was glorious.

Anders als der erste Band, Nach besser!

Ich denke viele werden die gleiche Erfahrung machen, die ersten 100 Seiten ist man echt verwirrt, aber das auf eine Art dass es einfach toll ist. Im letzten Drittel fügen sich dann alles zusammen. Toll geschrieben, im Original noch viel interessanter und zu empfehlen ist das Audiobook gesprochen von Moira Quirk.

Brain fuck but in a good way

Not gonna lie this needed all my brain cells and therefore made it really hard at times to push through (especially from the 30% to the 60% mark) but oh boi is it worth it. Tamsyn Muir is a masterful maniac and these books are insane(ly good)

After the comparatively flippant and loosely written first volume, this one made my brain smoke. The different timelines are chaoticly intertwined and not particularly explained, which isn't made any easier by the two different narrators. In addition, at some point it dawns on you that one of the two narrators is probably not exactly reliable. Be that as it may, this brain-knot is nevertheless made palatable with a sharp and delicious writing style, and by the end most of it largely clears up. I will definitely have to read this book again to fully understand everything, but this is an exceedingly nice opportunity to treat myself to the first one again as well. To summarize: intelligently complicated, shocking, funny, bloody and brutal, creative and addictive "I pray the tomb is shut forever, I pray the rock is never rolled away. I pray that which was buried remains buried, insensate, in perpetual rest, with closed eye and stilled brain. I pray it lives, I pray it sleeps ..."

fuck, muir is a goddamn genius. i kind of hate her for doing this to me, because it fucking broke my little idiot heart and ripped my soul apart. in the best way possible, though, which is why i also adore her. i am in complete awe of this masterpiece.

What was that.

First of all: i dislike muir's writing style greatly at this point. It doesnt deliver anything for me and i hate the way it sounds. This may because its targeted to be necromancyish but i hate how she describes scenes and how her characters develop and handle themselves or how her plot depends on lying to the reader. After the bad first book i didnt much like either i took this up because i thought i had now a headstart on all the characters and could use that information. I switched to the audiobook and had to experience the worst narrator of all time. She literally made me angry. Nothing made sense, everything was all over the place and this book was way too long and the resolution too bad to make this worth it in any way. I truly have a grudge against this series now and cannot in good faith allow any physical copies in my proximity.

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 So a book that literally has the lines: “choke me, daddy” and the dialogue: “I am not fucking dead. - Hi, I am not fucking dead. I am dad.”, is already fairly entertaining. For most of this book, you have to do the same as in book one: just go with the flow and follow the river. Don’t try to figure stuff out, because you will only melt your brain. In the last act you will get some answers and stuff will beginn to make sense. And yet, and yet, you never get all the answers. You will always be left somewhat baffled and literally have to read the next book, if you actually want a conclusion to this. And overall the saying: nothing is what it seems, is really accurate for this storyline. Do I think it was better than book one? Hard to say. Looking back, I feel like I might like book one more, for one obvious reason, but book two wasn’t in danger of me dnfing it, because I was in it already. The world, the people, the overarching storyline. Major pet peeve that this book did to me the same as the first one: WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT EPILOGUE!

Diesen Trip muss ich jetzt erst mal sacken lassen XD Hattet Ihr schon mal das Gefühl, etwas zu lesen, dabei hauptsächlich verwirrt zu sein, aber trotzdem nicht aufhören zu können, weil es irgendwie genial ist? Tja, so ging es mir mit "Harrow the Ninth" von Tamsyn Muir. Eigentlich habe ich für das Buch deutlich länger als gewohnt gebraucht, da ich es auf Englisch las und stellenweise dachte, ich würde da irgendetwas nicht kapieren. Also habe ich mir aus der Bibliothek zusätzlich die Übersetzung ausgeliehen, nur um festzustellen, dass mein Englisch doch nicht so schlecht ist und ich das Gelesene an sich sehr wohl verstanden habe. Aber... was da im Kopf von Harrow abging... wow... was für eine Reise XD Ich mochte schon den Vorgänger "Gideon the Ninth", was auch schon ziemlich schräg war, und irgendwie ging ich davon aus, dass es vermutlich so (zumindest ähnlich) mit Harrow weiter gehen würde. Hmmm, falsch gedacht. Es ist zwar die Fortsetzung, aber doch gänzlich anders. Es tauchen bekannte Charaktere auf, aber auch Neue - alle sehr faszinierend. Es schadet auf keinen Fall, wenn man das "Who's who" aus dem Vorgänger ein wenig verinnerlicht hat. Auf dieses Buch muss man sich einlassen, ohne zu viele Gedanken zu verschwenden. Zu den stellenweise wirren Geschehnissen gibt es etliche Rückblicke und Szenenwechsel, die man einfach auf sich wirken lassen muss. Mit der Zeit ergibt das Gelesene immer mehr Sinn... nur um zwischendurch wieder auf's Neue zu verwirren... um dann wieder etwas entwirrt zu werden... oder auch nicht. Schlicht gesagt: Nicht zu sehr über das Gelesene nachdenken. Möglich, unmöglich, Logik, Sinn, Unsinn... darüber zu grübeln funktioniert hier nicht - und es macht trotzdem Sinn. Ist das verwirrend? Hmmm... irgendwie schon. Aber ich fand, dass sich das Lesen lohnte. Zwar musste ich mich deutlich mehr auf das Lesen konzentrieren und meinen Wortschatz in Sachen Nekromantie ein wenig aufstocken, aber das störte mich nicht sonderlich. Denn die Ideen, Dialoge, Charaktere und Ereignisse fesselten mich von Seite zu Seite mehr. Bevor ich Gideon las dachte ich, dass es sich hier um eine Fantasy Reihe handelt. Aber spätestens nach Harrow ordne ich es eher in Sci-Fi ein. Das tut meiner Begeisterung absolut keinen Abbruch - ich muss nur ein wenig umdenken. Denn Sci-Fi funktioniert etwas anders, als Fantasy. Ich sage dabei nicht, dass Nekromantie in irgendeiner Form wissenschaftlich belegbar/umsetzbar wäre. Wie Tamsyn Muir das Thema hier jedoch anpackt, ist recht fantasievoll wissenschaftlich und sorgt mit ihrem Schreibstil und Ideenreichtum für ordentlich Abwechslung. Eins habe ich fast vergessen: Gefühle. Ja, die gibt es auch. Wenn ich es genau betrachte, sind hier Gefühle sogar das Hauptthema. Aber, das fällt erst mal gar nicht so auf... aber irgendwie doch. Es drängt sich nur nicht so in den Vordergrund. Ich freue mich jedenfalls jetzt schon auf Band 3 "Nona the Ninth". Die ersten beiden Bände werde ich davor jedoch nochmal in Angriff nehmen. Nicht nur, um mir die ganzen Charaktere und Ereignisse wieder in Erinnerung zu rufen. Ich bin mir sicher, dass mir das Vorwissen bestimmt ein neues Lesevergnügen bereiten (und ein paar weitere Knoten entwirren) wird :)

Me throughout this book: