- basically I spent this whole book confused.

- the World building is clearly amazingly original, but was never explained-- I was in desperate need of an info dump to parse out the history of this house/world/culture, especially when it came to the necromancy elements-- which were cool, when I knew vaguely what was happening

- my whole book club's complaint was this same thing-- the consistent "...huh?" was not fun and in my opinion not resolved

- there were too many characters, each with four titles/names;

-Gideon's voice / speech patterns were funny but unlike everyone else;

-so much jargon amidst dense writing;

-pacing increased with every chapter, the last 30% went by too fast;

-at the end... Is she gone? What is a lyctor?;

-the romance basically didn't exist in my opinion

re-read as of 9/27/22:
Just as good as the first time, but this time I actually understood most of what was going on.
-----
Gideon says puns are always funny and so do I

I forgot I wrote a whole note with a review so here’s my actual review:

When I first started reading this about 6 months ago, I just couldn’t get into it and ended up putting it back on my to read shelf. I picked it up again to read with a friend and this time I was hooked. The beginning is a bit slow but once they leave the ninth it really picks up.

A few things:
I cried throughout the whole last chapter and then the epilogue. I got so invested!

I was constantly having to look up words, so I guess this is a good book for SAT prep.

Prose was really interesting. Rough but beautiful. Very accessible and I absolutely love the use of language to indicate the different house personalities.

I am still left with a lot of questions about Gideon’s backstory and where her mother was from. And also the alluding to another Gideon in the far past. Maybe that will be in future books

This was an interesting first foray for me into science fantasy - with a few horror elements to boot. I liked the book but didn't love it.

While certainly not a comedy, the book is quite funny (e.g., ". . . whose main claim to fame was that he was slightly more decrepit alive than some of the legitimately dead"). Muir's use of humor is so skillful that it doesn't seem out of place even in some of the darkest parts of the novel, though I think some readers may find the contemporary nature of the humor to be off-putting (e.g., "that's what she said" jokes). Gideon herself is a wise-cracking character with a love of puns.

We get to know Gideon to some degree, but I wish we had gotten to know more about her internal world. I did appreciate that Muir just lets her exist as a lesbian, without the focus having to be on any kind of romantic or sexual relationship. While Gideon definitely develops feelings for other characters, that's not the focus of the book. She and Harrow also start to become closer. At first, this is at a snail's pace, which fit with their history of hostility. Later in the book it seemed a bit rushed.

The novel's pacing was a bit slow in the middle, especially when Gideon is just wandering around with nothing to do. This is how we start to learn about the other characters, but I was also waiting for something to happen. The ending was very fast-paced, although the battle felt a little long.

There's limited world-building, which for the most part fits. You don't need to know much since this ends up being almost like a locked room mystery. That said, I would have liked a little more information on the types of necromancy the other heirs specialize in and what the Houses' roles are within the Empire.

The humor and writing style were great, and Muir created an interesting world with clearly delineated characters. The uneven pacing and lack of depth to some characters and relationships were what was lacking for me. The ending was phenomenal. I haven't decided whether I'll read "Harrow the Ninth." I'm intrigued enough to maybe want to read on, but probably not right away.