Author: Tamsyn Muir
Rating: DNF’d at 31% (I gave it a fair shot!)
Eighteen-year-old Gideon has hatched a plan to leave the Ninth House but her childhood nemesis Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House, hijacks her plan.
Spoilers ahead.
Detailed Summary
There are nine planets and each is ruled by the Houses. The Houses are ruled by the Emperor. Gideon was planning to leave on a shuttle. Her mother had ended up in the Ninth House, dead, with baby in tow. The Emperor calls for all the Houses to send their offspring to do a series of trials. Harrow makes Gideon her cavalier after her old one fled using the shuttle Gideon was meant to be on. They travel to Canaan House on the First House and meet the other heirs and cavaliers of the other Houses. Harrow leaves for days at a time to work while Gideon trains and finds like three girls hot. She finds Harrow with the help of some folk and that’s where I stopped.
Review
This was probably the biggest disappointment of the year so far. The first few chapters gave me the impression that there was going to be a lot of worldbuilding. I was intrigued by the necromancy and surprised that there was interplanetary travel. Gideon wasn’t particularly noteworthy and I did feel she was trying too hard to be cool (for lack of a better word) most of the time. However, I was willing to look past it. But after a while, the shallowness of the worldbuilding grated on my soul especially because there was none, absolute jackshit. The tone was super inconsistent. I thought it was meant to be an old-fashioned timey-wimey SFF novel but there would be modern lingo dumped here and there. It read like a patchwork blanket with the most disgusting colours sitting next to each other. And if I sound salty, that’s because this year has been absolutely horrendous reading-wise.
Earnestly Eccentric 