Nona the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

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language: English
country: Aotearoa
year: 2022
form: novel
genre(s): science fiction, fantasy
series: The Locked Tomb, #3
dates read: 8.10.22-10.10.22, 10.11.22-16.11.22

okay, well. here is my Nona the Ninth review:

• there were a lot of things I really, really liked
• there were a few things I kind of hated
• I still very much cannot wait for Alecto the Ninth
• I did not think the pacing was great, and in particular, in contrast to the first two books, I think this did not do a very good job pacing its dispensal of world-building information
• I think — relatedly — that it suffered from the choice to focalize the book through Nona
• ultimately, the problem is: Alix Harrow’s cover blurb notwithstanding, I simply did not love Nona, and she stood in the way of me loving everything and everyone else

moods: adventurous, dark, lighthearted, mysterious

I also plan on rereading it as soon as the hard copy comes in from the library, and I have a suspicion I will enjoy it more in that format. we’ll see.

I can’t stop thinking about this and every time I do I get more disppointed. this book simply was not good! it was okay, which compared to the first two books is a pretty searing indictment. the pacing is bad. Nona’s perspective is incredibly frustrating because she doesn’t understand anything but we as readers do. the disconnect is just..deeply annoying.

if this book had to exist — instead of being a 50-to-100-page prelude to Alecto the Ninth — literally any other character up to and including Noodle would have been a better and more engaging choice, although I think in particular split-POV between Camilla and Palamedes (plus eventually [REDACTED]) would have been ideal, and would also have let Muir do some more of the formal play that made Harrow so interesting, since it could have had epistolary elements.

we don’t get enough information about or exposure to the Blood of Eden for me to care about any of them narratively or as characters in their own right. all of the interesting stuff in the narrative is shoved in at the very end, with the first, like, 80% of the book as filler. I can appreciate a book where the priority is the vibe rather than the plot, but the vibe of this book is just boring!

okay, on rereading — with a physical copy instead of the audiobook — I have come to the following conclusions:

• I liked this significantly more as a physical book, in large part because I could just…ignore the fact that Nona is the POV character. this was made easier by not having Moira Quirk’s voice for both Nona and the narration, and the fact that for a solid like 75% of the book it is, in fact, possible to forget that Nona is there. this is still bad! but Nona’s transparency made the book more enjoyable, I guess
• I still stand by my assessment that this book is by far the weakest of the series so far. it does not accomplish the things it seems to have intended to accomplish (in particular: giving us a sense of everyday life, giving us a sense of Blood of Eden). I still love Camilla and Palamedes, and I love Pyrrha WAY more without the inexplicable French accent that she didn’t have in Harrow.
• ultimately this book has squandered a lot of my faith in Muir’s information dispensation. both Gideon and Harrow left me feeling like I knew more about the world than when I began. Nona feels like a net information loss, not because there’s no world-building information but because there’s simply too much new information, some of it extremely plot relevant, and none of which is explained, a good portion of which seems like it is very unlikely to be elaborated on later, both because the book doesn’t seem to think it’s important and because it seems pretty clear that the whirlwind of new information conveyed out of nowhere in the last 15% of the book is what Alecto is going to focus on.
• I do not love Nona, and I do not love Nona.
• I did, however, up my rating on Storygraph to 3.25 instead of 3. it works so much better as a physical book, but this is because it’s easier to forget about the main character. that’s still not a good sign.
• also, as an aside, I realized this time that it’s implied that John is Māori and I. do not like that, or, more to the point, it really doesn’t seem to fit with, uh, anything about his character or actions.
• I am. worried about Alecto. there are simply so many ways it could get cheesy or bad and I no longer trust Muir to avoid the pitfalls.

webring >:-]
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