Nona the Ninth (The Locked Tomb Series, 3)

I have so many conflicting thoughts about this. I may update this review later with more organized opinions. Like the previous books in the series, the front chunk of the book is mostly "what is going on?" and then there is a rushed ending with a rapid release of information and twists. Ultimately this was a lot more enjoyable than Harrow the Ninth during the "what the hell is happening?" Part of the book, but I think I liked the "rapid release of info and twists" part less? I did grow attached to Nona and appreciated her innocent view of the world. I enjoyed the somewhat domestic, almost slice-of-life storytelling before we got into the heavier plot stuff.

I'll have to gather my thoughts.

Fundamentally this is a story about love and what motivations make a life well lived. And I just can't emphasize enough how much I didn't see that coming.

We meet folks of unimaginable power and influence and we come to know the desperate state in which they live. And the author shows us exactly what emotions lead these powerful people to live in such a way. We get to know God, who turns out to be an insecure middle aged (now immortal) dude who couldn't back down from a fight with a bunch of inauthentic selfish capitalists and winds up destroying humanity. We get to know the lychtors, beings of unimaginable power who spend millennia regretting the means by which they achieved that power. We get to know young adepts, whose ambition drives them down this same path. And we get to see what they do when they become aware of its costs. And we become a bit depressed as we resign ourselves to this treadmill of power that tempts and then corrupts generation after generation.

And then we get to see hope.

We meet a handful of folks that simply, inexplicably, remain focused on the humanity in front of them. Cam and Palamedes and Pyrrah show us that ordinary human love is an enduring source of strength, even amidst a terrifying backdrop that causes virtually everyone to compromise their ideals.

And then there's Nona. A unique take on the Christ story. Modern and timeless. Three interesting things about Muir's take: (1) she emphasizes the role of the unconscious - Nona listens to her feelings, sensations, hunches as much as her thoughts. Muir puts us into Nona's mind and lets us experience where these feelings come from and how they work. I can't recall reading about that outside of books that are explicitly written by therapists; (2) she shows us the simplicity of heroism. Love and sacrifice come not from intellectualization or abstraction or knowledge of any sort. This is not Christ the teacher, but Christ the child. Unwilling to move beyond the decent and simple, however silly that might appear; (3) she shows us who this sort of person looks up to, in particular all the stuff with Hot Sauce is thought provoking.

The book never moralizes. It simply places these relationships in front of us, stimulates them with a few big plot points, and then lets us watch them play out. What a show.

FOUR STARS. A wise, patient, caring book.

I have a great love for the first two books of The Locked Tomb series. Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth were books that left me crushed in the best way possible. I'd been anticipating Nona the Ninth for so long that I thought my excitement would lead to disappointment. I thought wrong. Nona the Ninth was all the greatness I hoped it would be and more. Following from the epilogue of Harrow the Ninth, we meet Nona; a girl who is literally six months old even though she's *technically* nineteen. She only has memories of six months of her life and she doesn't really know who she is. Her companions have hinted that she's one of two people and they're hoping she'll get her memories back. If you're familiar with the series, the soul of necromancers being stuck in dead bodies is no new concept and we're forced to wonder; is Nona Harrow or Gideon? One thing I loved about this book is that even though you have to keep asking yourself that question, picking apart scenes that hint Nona is one or the other of those two people, you're also introduced to Nona as a character and she's great! Really. Nona is lovable and kind and funny and daring. She's extremly loyal to her friends and those she calls her family. Nona, being six months old, has a great love for all she calls home no matter how horrible it looks to the readers. Her city is a ravaged town, every day people get shot and there are dead people lining the streets but, if you ask Nona, it's an amazing place and she doesn't want to be any where else. Her friends are a ragtag band of misfits consisting of a girl unironically named Hot Sauce and a compulsive liar, drug dealer named Honesty. If you asked Nona, they're the best people in the world and Hot Sauce is a perfectly normal name. She'd do almost anything for a six-legged dog named Noodle! That's just the type of person she is. Nona's relationship with her family is an amazing dynamic. As a bonus, we get to look into the lives of Camilla and Palamedes (who we meet in book one) and Pyrrha Dve (who we meet in book one); characters you will come to love at the end of Nona the Ninth. We also get a full backstory to how John, the Emperor Undying, went from simple, scientist man in a dying world to God. This review would be incomplete if I didn't mention how effortlessly queer the entire book is. Pyrrha is a woman in the male body of her late cavalier and best friend Gideon and Nona constantly cracks up when people refer to her as 'he' (she also detests when they think Pyrrha is her pimp). Camilla and Palamedes both live in Camilla's body and swap from time to time and to Nona, that's just a regular tuesday. One of Nona's friends, Born In The Morning (yes, that is their name) has seven dads and I'm honestly still not sure how that came about. Queerness isn't some huge political issue in their world, it just is and that, in and of itself, was highly refreshing. The only issue I have with Nona the Ninth is that it's too short and I desire more. I cannot wait to read the fourth book.