Harrow the Ninth

This series does not give up its secrets easily. It holds them closely and tightly like a squirrel with its nuts. I was left at the end of the last book with a lot of questions, and really pressing plot developments that I needed answers to, and “Harrow the Ninth“ wasn’t going to give them to me lightly. The book does its best from the get-go to upend your sense of reality, attacking your memories of what exactly happened in the first book. It does this both in story content - it directly contradicts events as you remember them from book one - but also in the narration. style. I can’t say that I have ever read another book that spends this much time in the second person. It took me quite a while to get used to it, as I typically despise second person, but once I did it won me over. It’s use emphasized the tone, and set up some surprising reveals in the last act. I don’t want to say too much aside from the fact that all of the strangeness and confusion is worth it for those big reveals, and I recommend sticking with the book through it. It is worth the ride. The story follows Harrow in both the present and past, with the past reliving events from the first book from a different angle and with those big inconsistencies, while the present focuses on her experiences with the Emperor and the other Lictors, as she learns more about the truth of the state of the empire, and her role in it. The book is full of interesting world building, conflicting personalities, mysteries, and occasional flashes of action and violence that are thoroughly satisfying to read. I personally would not say that I like this one better than the first, because I missed some of the characters I liked from that first book, but this is very easily a worthy successor that does very interesting things with its narration, and it is a strong recommendation from me.

I question the sanity of the author. Why the fuck did she decide to start the book like that? After she lost already 50% of her readers struggeling through the first book, she starts the second book like that???

- no familar character you can connect to
- complete diffuse storry-telling for the first 30 pages, then info dumb and another 50 pages of diffuse story-telling
-2nd person form (You opened your eyes... etc.)
- complete unrecognizable Harrow character

there is nothing you can connect to in the beginning of the second book. You question all the information you got in the end of the first book. And everyone starting this book struggles so hard. It was complete unnecessary. I needed to scream at my friend until I made it to page 100. And then it was another 280 pages until FINALLY things started to make sense and fell into place.
and let's be honest, we all knew it was Gideon telling the story. She could have just kept that form, there was no need at all to hide this away. At least then it would not have lost the humor you were used to in Gideon. It was also not a big secret. If Gideon would have sarcastically screamed at Harrow for all the shit she did, at least it would have been super amusing

oh and also, please remember all those unbelievable unnecessary page fillers, no one needed? And were just added to idk confuse people??? or bring back dead characters???

Does the author not want to keep readers engaged to sell the most possible numbers of book three? We read the book with our book club. We started with 10 people for Gideon. Only 5 made it through. Then we read Harrow and only 2 made it through, everyone else gave up. I mean, if you have to put in so much effort, you do not read this book for entertainment anymore. Then you can just read Ulysses tbh.

The end is worth it, and if you liked Gideon you really should keep reading. BUT GOD AM I ANGRY FOR THE BEGINNING.