Harrow the Ninth

I guess I would say take this for what it is... I am openly admitting that maybe I am forgetting a hell of a lot about Gideon the Ninth??

For starters, I have this weird engrained dislike for the use of the word “you” from teachers trying so hard to get us to keep the word out of essays that this really turned me off. Not to mention that in this 506 page book (my hardcover) she uses “you” probably one million times. I called immediately what it was being used for—in a weird, in the perspective of, but not of, Gideon speaking... I hated it.
Now I don't remember if it was mentioned in Gideon the decision to remove her memory of her, but by my reckoning, Gideon was not mentioned for 381 pages. I totally see what Muir was going for but I found that it really, really, REALLY did not work for me.
I distinctly remember realizing at page 60, 100, 150, that I genuinely had absolutely no idea what was going on. This could have been a mixture of me not remember what happened in Gideon, but I also have to imagine that this was also a decent amount of poor writing too, right? Not that plot was a strong point in Gideon the Ninth, but this almost 400 page lead-up to the “twist” just completely erased any comprehensiveness in the story for me. Also I really enjoyed the murder mystery-y feel to Gideon the Ninth and I feel like this was the author trying to continue on with the mystery feel. For me it was a flop.

I would say pages 1-400 were a 2* to maybe a 2.5. Then the climax was a bit more understandable and cool, maybe a 3-3.5 ending. Really not sure at this point if I'll read Alecto the Ninth...