Harrow the Ninth

4.5 stars. This book is truly not for the faint of heart. It was confusing, it was wild, it was bewildering - and yet, I had an absolute blast. I've never read anything quite like this series, simultaneously befuddling me at every turn but yet more engaging than most books I've read. If you enjoyed the first book, you would quite likely enjoy this one - but be warned that you'd still be confused as all heck for most of it.

If you already enjoyed the first book, there was probably just something about the writing or the story or the world-building that clicked for you. This series and Muir's writing is definitely not for everyone, but if it clicks for you, you probably would be hard pressed to find a more stellar example of what she does well. Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed the extremely unique voice in her narrative, a blend of almost grimdark fantasy with black humour all delivered in the tone of high-schoolers somehow.

I'm also the sort of reader who's pretty OK to just let the story go on even if I'm not completely understanding what's going on and trying to catch the main gist as I go along. This served me particularly well for this book. It's common for fantasy/sci-fi books to be pretty obscure for the first 20-30%, sometimes even up to 50%. But this book... this book read like a fever dream for a whopping 70% of the book before you get any kind of clarity on what on earth is happening. I can definitely see that not working for a lot of people, but I was just enjoying myself so much with the narrative voice despite not having a single clue what was going on. Also, be warned that a lot of this book uses the second-person narrative.

Behind it all, there's a really fascinating world and story that Muir is building here. It's just sometimes hard to have a good grip on what the world is actually all about because we see it through some very convoluted perspectives. Nevertheless though, I have always been pretty satisfied with how the stories conclude for both the first book and this one, there's just enough of a pay-off to make the fever dreams clearer and less of a hot mess, and just enough of a cliffhanger to make you wild for the next installment already.

Spoilery thoughts: I felt like what really pulled me through the first confusing 70% was how beautifully it was done that we always just almost touched Gideon but never did, and the way the narrative and Harrow and every other character always seemed to just dance around Gideon's name just made the ghost of her feel even more real despite the absence. When Gideon eventually did come back, I never realised how much I missed her narrative voice until just then.I probably missed the answers to some of these from the confusion of the ending but: Who the heck is Wake and why is she a Commander and why is she so involved with just about everyone in the First House? So was it also established that she was also the Sleeper? And why was the Saint of Duty trying to kill Harrow through the whole book? Who was Anastasia/Annabel? Did we find out who the Body in the Tomb was? Why did Augustine and Mercy go all that length to conceive Gideon?

I very certainly will continue this series.