【 NONA THE NINTH 】

I mean, I still have no idea what’s going on. That’s kinda annoying.

Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Author: Tamsyn Muir
Published: September 2022
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 480 (paperback)

I do really enjoy the books in this series, but everything after Gideon the Ninth has been a colossal effort to keep up with. I’m really glad that for Nona the Ninth I swapped to a physical book (as opposed to audiobook, which I did for the first two) because my comprehension was waaay higher.

But nonetheless, omg my brain hurts.

Nona still had the fabulous quirky voice that the other two books have had, but the characters are so different they’re almost foreign. Nona is cute, but I want some familiarity. I’m damn glad we’re getting another book because this one felt like it just ended and left us high and dry. Nona being an unknown entity is both fun and exhausting, because we’ve spent two books getting to know Gideon and Harrow, only to have them taken away from us. Not going to lie, that is kind of annoying and dampened my experience of this one.

One of the hardest parts of this book is playing the sleuthing game to work out who everyone is. Nearly everyone has a different name. Working out how many people are in one body is also a fun game to play. Working out whether you’ve met the character before and now they just have a new name, or if they’re entirely new makes the book quite muddled, makes the book feel entirely different to the first two. It lowkey is a disappointment and doesn’t work for me.

I am tired after reading this.

While I really enjoyed the experience – Muir has a fun writing style – I’m still hanging out for the great a-ha moment (hopefully to come in the next book?? If I can be bothered reading it??). Three stars because while this was excellent, it would’ve been nice to get a bit more clarity on some (many) things. I’m somewhat deflated and unsure if I want to actually continue this series now, which is a double disappointment after my great experience with book one.

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