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ravenking1771 · 1 year

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Nona the Ninth is Frustrating Boring and a waste of your time

Before I begin my Rant, Spoilers for The Locked Tomb

I have read Gideon the Ninth

Gideon was an amazing fun read with a protagonist who was dynamic action packed and emotionally cathartic.

I have read Harrow the Ninth

The book and plot was an igneous puzzle with a great payoff for some of the mysteries of this book and last and set up incredible possibilities for the third book

Nona the Ninth is frustrating and boring,

This issue is that this book is boring and frustrating because we follow a boring frustrating character who has no internal development. The plot is disconnected from the previous book to such an absurd degree that I who just finished reading Harrow the Ninth the night before had to reread the ending to make sure I hadn’t missed something. Nona is amnesiac with no history or personality and only a few strange gifts. The first half of the book involves interesting characters waiting around on Nona to fucking remember anything or do anything interesting. I never want to reread this book again because it is some much saccharine filler with only a couple of interest morsels for me.

The dominant mechanic is for reader to follow a mentally damaged Nona around who anytime she starts to hear or participate in something interesting is yanked off to go to school with Muir’s attempt at writing adolescents (not teenagers but kids who haven’t even reached puberty). There is so much potential going! An interstellar rebellion against an immortal god-emperor! Revolutionary infighting! An approaching elder god monster thing! Which we only see through the eyes of disinterested uncomprehending and passive child. Yes Nona is a child, she is written like a child and had all of the experience of a child. There is absolutely no emotional connection to Nona only the most basic superficial and above all obvious emotional manipulation ever practiced. Ever heard of save the cat (or dog in this case) that’s all over the first half of the book. The manipulative aspect is so bad I felt my eyes rolling out of my head and is basic and formulaic that it boring. Of course she loves animals and is kind and loving; god forbid she a personality beyond a bowl of white sugar. Gideon was raging fire straining against the hell she was born into. Harrow was a self-destructive genius coming to terms with the abuse she suffered and the abuse she inflicted. Nona is sweet, loving and kind to animals and

I have some simple rules with writing if the reader is bored you the author have failed. If the reader is frustrated you the author have failed. This book inspired boredom and frustration. I read it quickly not because I like Nona but rather to finally figure out what the fuck was going with everyone. Rather than enjoying the writing and events and the plot I started treating it like a wiki or a reference book; skipping until I reached the stuff that was important.

This unfortunately brings me back memories to another book. I had to slog through the boredom and frustration that was “A Feast for Crows” 750 pages of GRRM bad idea. It is possible to be great writer and make really bad decisions. GRRM’s writing? Excellent! His characters? Great! His Plot? A mistake, anauthor getting lost in his theme and neglecting to progress his narrative and wasting the audience’s time.

Now I am not calling George or Tamsyn a bad writer, but they both made a boneheaded series of decisions. Muir decides to radically change the entire style and characters for each book. Actually when put like that Muir is crossing over M. Knight Shyamalan territory, using the change in main characters as a trope crutch the same way he used twists. She managed to pull this off in book two because we had grown to know and care for Harrow in Book 1 and thus when got to book two with an incredible examination of a brilliant yet fractured mind you got novelty but also a sense of progression and insight into the event staking place in the story. But Nona never appeared in book 2 save as a nearly mute apparition. Thus in my case my frustration began to show through when I didn’t connect with that puddle of sugar water and I became bored with her class room antics and her little clique of rote friends. I was sold with Gideon the Ninth and I raged when Gideon sacrificed herself to save Harrow and I was excited when Gideon reappeared at the end of book 2 and then nothing. Forgive me for thinking the main protagonists of books one and two would make a significant appearance. I loved Gideon and Harrow I endured the naivety and passivity of Nona. Gideon and Harrow had relatable experiences and emotions, Nona had a nonsensical and alien and utterly relatable existence created through magic and plot contrivance.

I had to endure years of reading bullshit form supposedly smart people telling me that A Feast for Crows and a Dance with Dragons was anything other the author dropping the ball. His editor should have slapped twice in the face and told him to finish the goddamn story rather than dick around with the dozen or so secondary characters he shoves into every book. I have heard your excuses “But it’s supposed to be frustrating and boring” “It’s an intermission” you know what in movies we don’t see the heroes going to the bathroom waiting in line or walking down a hall because it is boring, someone once told me books are real life but without the boring bits. George and Muir created books with all of the boring bits and interesting shit cut out. Muir created an amazing openly book and a great follow-up but she has zero consistency and an inability to concentrate on the characters themes and storytelling that people to pick her books in the first place. She wants to write something else, something different? Fine start a new series or write some short stories they can even be in universe but she needs to stop yanking the audience around and actually be consistent for five minutes. I was promised lesbian duelist and necromancers and I aim to collect. If she has no intention then announce that she ain’t finishing the series and allow us to write our own fan endings.

Oh for those wondering why I think Muir screwed the fuck up with her saccharine plot it was because in the space of thirty minutes I cam up with a better4 central plot. Simple give us Harrow and Gideon trading bodies like Camilla and Palamedes and then you can slip Nona-Alecto-Gaia-whatthefuck-whoever in as a mysterious third personality/soul. Now you have characters we give a fuck about and the new kid that rather than causing the reader to overdose on artificial sweetener is diluted with Gideon’s bravado and Harrows brooding.

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