Nona the Ninth

Welcome to The Locked Tomb experience: what you’re reading makes absolutely no sense. Then you read something later, and that thing you read earlier now makes sense. But two pages later, nothing makes sense again. Oh, but by the way, you love every minute of it.**This review contains spoilers, so watch out**If Harrow the Ninth was traumatic, upsetting, and dark, Nona the Ninth is light and breezy and a little more every day. To start with, anyway, and mostly because Nona herself is clueless. Which means, like in Gideon the Ninth, we're experiencing everything at the same time as Nona. So all the confusing stuff, while still confusing, doesn't make you feel quite so bad because you at least know a little more than Nona. Speaking of Nona, I immediately fell in love with her. She has such an endearing personality, and after only a few lines, I knew she was a keeper (ugh).The whole book is like a mystery novel set within a fantasy sci-fi novel. I read slowly to try and work out what was happening, and I'm glad I did because I feel like I got a good handle on it. But that means nothing really because I could barely guess a thing.The thing with Tamsyn's writing is that she doesn't spell anything out for you, not at all. I spent almost half the book not understanding certain things simply because she never explicitly explained them - she never does. Normally this would be really annoying, but because the whole book is like that, you just accept you know nothing until your brain catches on and you go ohhhhh.After the first section of slice-of-life dystopian, we’re launched into chapter after chapter of intense scenes. These chapters, while incredible, we’re completely overwhelming. I didn’t feel there were any breaks or respite. Just tense and emotional twists, one after the other. I felt like I was in a constant state of unease and emotional distress. Which sounds dramatic, but if you know, you know. Which made reading the book a challenge because not only were you itching to rush through so you could find out what was happening. But you also wanted to go slow so you could actually understand what was going on.The John chapters, in particular, felt odd to me. I enjoyed the backstory, but like the other later chapters, they were incredibly tense and very rambly. Hearing him explain his past in his voice was weird. Mostly because, as a character, he’s not exactly trustworthy. Which left me wondering if what he was saying was legit or not. And let’s just talk about the character changes for a second. Because the arrival of Gideon was so exciting - like it was in Harrow - but her personality change was hard. I feel we’ll see a bit more of the parts we love in the next book, but after all the confusion and stress, seeing some classic Gideon would have been such a relief. Other than these small gripes, I’m not sure Tamsyn can do much wrong. In terms of a series, it’s raised the bar for me and will continue to do so. For more reviews and book recommendations, check out my YouTube channel

I really don't know what to feel about this series. I can understand why people like it, because it's unique and very intense. But I cannot say this is a story for me. I don't like the characters, there's a lot of confusion in the way the story is told, and the world building feels haphazard. So many important plot facts are explained offhandedly in dialogue and without context.