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jamgrl's Reviews (197)
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Update: upon reread it’s still really good
—-
I couldn’t put this book down; it took over my life for the week and a half I spent reading it, consuming my thoughts.
The tag line on the front of the book is misleading- Gideon is not a necromancer and the book is pretty much not in space. She is definitely a lesbian, though 😂. There is a lot of gloriously sapphic energy in this book. Also, I fell head over heels in love with Gideon, okay. (My spouse has teased me mercilessly.)
This book is hilarious and bleak.
It feels like it should be fun and lighthearted, and it is very fun- I laughed a lot; even during intense moments, the author expertly cut it with humor, which certainly makes it easier to handle some of what goes down.
Warning: the level of fuck-upedness in this book is high. Everything these people end up going through and learning and the reality that gets revealed about their God Undying and the Lyctors: it’s fucked up, okay, so, like, don’t read this book if you want something warm. The first half of the book might give you a false sense of security. It is also brilliant.
Warning #2 (somewhat spoilery): the end is DEVASTATING. Like in a does the dog die? sort of way. I don’t think I have ever been more devastated by the end of a book. I cried an embarrassing amount and now my spouse has declared he has to read it just so he can understand what brought me to such a state. I wished I hadn’t read it. And then I downloaded book 2.
—-
I couldn’t put this book down; it took over my life for the week and a half I spent reading it, consuming my thoughts.
The tag line on the front of the book is misleading- Gideon is not a necromancer and the book is pretty much not in space. She is definitely a lesbian, though 😂. There is a lot of gloriously sapphic energy in this book. Also, I fell head over heels in love with Gideon, okay. (My spouse has teased me mercilessly.)
This book is hilarious and bleak.
It feels like it should be fun and lighthearted, and it is very fun- I laughed a lot; even during intense moments, the author expertly cut it with humor, which certainly makes it easier to handle some of what goes down.
Warning: the level of fuck-upedness in this book is high. Everything these people end up going through and learning and the reality that gets revealed about their God Undying and the Lyctors: it’s fucked up, okay, so, like, don’t read this book if you want something warm. The first half of the book might give you a false sense of security. It is also brilliant.
Warning #2 (somewhat spoilery): the end is DEVASTATING. Like in a does the dog die? sort of way. I don’t think I have ever been more devastated by the end of a book. I cried an embarrassing amount and now my spouse has declared he has to read it just so he can understand what brought me to such a state. I wished I hadn’t read it. And then I downloaded book 2.
Incredible. I didn’t know what to expect going in, and yet this blew away expectations.
Coming into this book, I was devastated. I came straight from sobbing over the end of Gideon the Ninth, starting this one as my only method of coping. And the tonal shift was exactly what I needed- the second person was so unexpected and so effective and so beautifully devastating.
Once I settled into the book and numbed away some of my pain, I found the book to be slow and frustrating, which was difficult without having Gideon’s hilarious running commentary. However, Harrow is really interesting in her own way, and this author does not pull any punches. It is pretty impressive how such a tonal shift could be pulled off and yet this book could feel so inextricably tied to the first one.
Similar to the first one, about half way through, this book kicks up and then, my god, THE REVEALS. It makes the groundwork laid in the first half totally worth it when everything goes off the rails.
I am very excited for the next two books. It feels like the world will only get bigger with each book and I am really excited to learn more about the glimpses we have gotten. In the meantime, I have a feeling these two books will lend themselves really well to rereads!
Coming into this book, I was devastated. I came straight from sobbing over the end of Gideon the Ninth, starting this one as my only method of coping. And the tonal shift was exactly what I needed- the second person was so unexpected and so effective and so beautifully devastating.
Once I settled into the book and numbed away some of my pain, I found the book to be slow and frustrating, which was difficult without having Gideon’s hilarious running commentary. However, Harrow is really interesting in her own way, and this author does not pull any punches. It is pretty impressive how such a tonal shift could be pulled off and yet this book could feel so inextricably tied to the first one.
Similar to the first one, about half way through, this book kicks up and then, my god, THE REVEALS. It makes the groundwork laid in the first half totally worth it when everything goes off the rails.
I am very excited for the next two books. It feels like the world will only get bigger with each book and I am really excited to learn more about the glimpses we have gotten. In the meantime, I have a feeling these two books will lend themselves really well to rereads!
This book is fun and mostly light, which is great, and there were moments where I was really into it, but there were also moments where I wasn’t. It didn’t quite hit for me, to be entirely honest, but I’m certain plenty of people would love it.
What I like:
* I love the sapphic energy in this book, always a plus
* I like August’s detective-y background; there’s a great scene where she uses her detective skills on passengers on the train
* I like that there is the found family/friendship element that takes this book beyond just romance
* I like that August is a loner/inexperienced with relationships and learns how to love and be loved (platonically and romantically)
* I like that we get to spend a lot of time with August’s relationship with her mom
* I actually think it is quite fun that Nico is a psychic. The whole seance bit was hilarious.
What I don’t:
* There is something performative about the queerness in this book that I don’t love. It’s not all of it, it’s just there are moments where, for example, a character feels the need to declare he is pansexual when we learn about his current relationship lest we for a moment consider he may not be queer when we find out he has a girlfriend- it feels like the author wants us to know how queer everyone is and isn’t it wonderful! And it is wonderful to have this big queer family, it just feels very, like, queerness is everything and aren’t you glad nobody in this book isn’t queer? On the other hand, I think Nico’s transness is handled really well. So it’s a mixed bag for me.
* Similarly, the nostalgia for 1970s activism feels exactly that: nostalgic. It’s not that the book doesn’t deal with homophobia from that period/doesn’t hit some of the darkness, it’s just that it feels a bit like a sanitized and simplistic version of history. A little rich that a book with a bisexual protagonist written by a bisexual author conveniently forgets to mention the biphobia (and transphobia) coming from within the queer community in 1970s activism, or just general factions or infighting you find in any movement. It is presented as a perfect history with clear heroes, Jane obviously being one of them, and that rubs me the wrong way
* I don’t love destiny narratives, that one is on me
* The sci-fi-y time slip element is fun, but it also gets over explainy at times and is, well, cheesy; (spoiler) to be entirely honest, I think I would have liked it better if Jane had gone back to the 1970s…
* There is an overarching feeling of tumblr wokeness that I just don’t love (by this I mean performative virtue signaling); I did not feel this way about Red, White, and Royal Blue, but maybe it was just more appropriate in that context.
I’m sure a lot of people will find this fun and relatable, it just doesn’t hit for me.
What I like:
* I love the sapphic energy in this book, always a plus
* I like August’s detective-y background; there’s a great scene where she uses her detective skills on passengers on the train
* I like that there is the found family/friendship element that takes this book beyond just romance
* I like that August is a loner/inexperienced with relationships and learns how to love and be loved (platonically and romantically)
* I like that we get to spend a lot of time with August’s relationship with her mom
* I actually think it is quite fun that Nico is a psychic. The whole seance bit was hilarious.
What I don’t:
* There is something performative about the queerness in this book that I don’t love. It’s not all of it, it’s just there are moments where, for example, a character feels the need to declare he is pansexual when we learn about his current relationship lest we for a moment consider he may not be queer when we find out he has a girlfriend- it feels like the author wants us to know how queer everyone is and isn’t it wonderful! And it is wonderful to have this big queer family, it just feels very, like, queerness is everything and aren’t you glad nobody in this book isn’t queer? On the other hand, I think Nico’s transness is handled really well. So it’s a mixed bag for me.
* Similarly, the nostalgia for 1970s activism feels exactly that: nostalgic. It’s not that the book doesn’t deal with homophobia from that period/doesn’t hit some of the darkness, it’s just that it feels a bit like a sanitized and simplistic version of history. A little rich that a book with a bisexual protagonist written by a bisexual author conveniently forgets to mention the biphobia (and transphobia) coming from within the queer community in 1970s activism, or just general factions or infighting you find in any movement. It is presented as a perfect history with clear heroes, Jane obviously being one of them, and that rubs me the wrong way
* I don’t love destiny narratives, that one is on me
* The sci-fi-y time slip element is fun, but it also gets over explainy at times and is, well, cheesy; (spoiler) to be entirely honest, I think I would have liked it better if Jane had gone back to the 1970s…
* There is an overarching feeling of tumblr wokeness that I just don’t love (by this I mean performative virtue signaling); I did not feel this way about Red, White, and Royal Blue, but maybe it was just more appropriate in that context.
I’m sure a lot of people will find this fun and relatable, it just doesn’t hit for me.