"Gideon the Ninth" - First Impressions *No Spoilers*

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Come share your first impressions about our Fantasy runner up pick!

Please leave specifics around plot points, writing changes, character growth and so on for the full discussion thread open on the 7th!

Content warnings for those who want them:

(view spoiler)[genocide, infanticide, body horror, torture, loss of parents, suicide, chronic terminal illness/cancer (hide spoiler)]

[Emmett]

My only real thought after reading the first two chapters is "...What?"

Looking forward to that question being answered... I think.

[DivaDiane]

Lol Emmett! My thoughts precisely! I’m a little farther (Chapter 5?) and the predominant thoughts are still, “Wait! What?” I’m enjoying it, though. There are some great lines.

[Anna]

For those who want to read old buddy read comments, the buddy read thread is here. It is now a series thread starting with Harrow the Ninth, so those who want to continue the series can jump over there after they've discussed this book in the official threads :)

[Banshee]

I remember it took me at least 50 pages to start figuring out what was actually going on.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the reactions to the book. It's very polarising and I haven't seen many people who felt lukewarm towards it.

[Tony]

I also found the first couple of chapters confusing. I feel that, as a reader, we were dropped right in the middle of a story. It is well-written and because of that, I will press on...

[Laura]

I am a little more than two hours into the audiobook and I'm kind of confused but also intrigued. The world seems interesting and I like that I can't really see where the story is going.

[Hans]

I loved it but yeah, it was very much a "Wait, what?" book. And I think the reasons I loved it for might be the same reasons that others might hate it for.

[Kari]

I ended up loving it so much even though for the first good chunk of it, I was so lost.

[Gabi]

I'm one of the polarized folks. I read it last year and my first impression was "how pubertal" ^^'.

(Edited for a wrong spelled word. Thanks for the shout out!)

[Beth]

I was confused, but more intrigued than that.

Apparently there's a fair amount of meme references in the book--part of what would give it a "too young" feeling, I suspect--but since I'm an old I didn't recognize any of it.

[Tria]

Gabi wrote: "I'm one of the polarized folks. I read it last year and my first impression was "how pupertal" ^^'."

Did you mean "pubertal"? I've never come across "pupertal" before, so I searched it, and the results are confusing, but mostly seem to say that's probably what you meant. But that... wouldn't really be a surprise? After all, Gideon and Harrowhark are teenagers. It makes rather a nice change for an adult to write adolescent girls with adolescent voices, I find.

I first read it in June and, while it isn't my usual fare, I fell in love with it. So much so that I finally seem to have my writing muse back, because I went off and wrote a fanfic almost as soon as I'd finished...

(No, I'm not going to link it here. It's post-story, and far too spoilery for a first impressions thread. Which in itself frustrates me a little, because even if I had started reading today, I'd have had to wait 5 days minimum after finishing it to comment. Did we ever have a poll on the timescale for opening spoiler threads??)

[Gabi]

Tria wrote: "Gabi wrote: "I'm one of the polarized folks. I read it last year and my first impression was "how pupertal" ^^'."

Did you mean "pubertal"? I've never come across "pupertal" before, so I searched i..."

LOL! Yes, I meant that. I have to look up all my vocabulary ... and sometimes my brain isn't suffice to remember the words from the dictionary side to the GR side. I'm sorry! I will instantly edit the post to prevent further confusion ^^'.

[Fabitha]

I read it earlier this year (just in time to see Harrow the Ninth hit the shelves) and I LOVED it!

It was fairly different from any other fantasy or scifi I read before and it was such an engrossing read. I would just go on and on because I needed to know what the Hell? was going on. Plus Gideon is quite funny.

I'm super curious to know what you all'll think about it ^^

[Banshee]

Beth wrote: "Apparently there's a fair amount of meme references in the book--part of what would give it a "too young" feeling, I suspect--but since I'm an old I didn't recognize any of it."

It's pretty funny now that you mention it. I also ended up absolutely loving the book after the initial confusion. But then I looked at other reviews and many claimed that the book is chock-full with pop culture references. My reaction was: "Wait... What? There were references...?" 😮

[Jessica]

I read it a few months ago and I was a bit disappointed. Very, very cool worldbuilding but um... I didn't get the rave reviews I was seeing everywhere. I also found it dense and confusing a lot of the time.

[Anna]

Please remember that final verdicts, whether positive or negative, can be considered spoilers! This thread is really just for your thoughts at the beginning of the book. I know it's tempting to jump in with all the feels, I've done it myself, but if at all possible, please wait until the spoiler thread opens :)

[Raucous]

I'm still at the early on "What?" stage. This is going to be so weird. But so far it's an interesting weird.

[Mindy]

I have only read a couple of pages but so far I am really enjoying the prose. It is definitely unpretentious but it is also light, clever, and a lot of fun. I am enjoying the dialogue also.

[Mindy]

I wonder...are all the skeletons and descriptions of death a metaphor?

[Onieva56]

I read this one a few months ago, but I'll jump on the wait what! train. The first couple chapters of this book were a bit of a shock with me trying to adjust to how profoundly strange this book is. Once I started to jive with the strangeness and just roll with it, I've found it to be a fun read

[Leonie]

I also read this one a couple of months ago. Early on, I wondered if I could be bothered continuing, due to the 'what is going on and where is this place, and why doesn't anything make sense' stuff.

I did eventually decide to persist, but will refrain from commenting further right now. I am looking forward to hearing what people think.

[HeyT]

I remember when I read this I made the mistake of starting late at night and ended up reading the whole thing in one sitting so I didn't end up going to bed until like 430am. I thought it was worth it though.

[Christopher]

One funny thing for me is watching Kindle's estimation of my reading speed. This book is so much denser than other recent books that I've read that the estimation keeps going higher each time I sit down with it. I think it started at 4 hours and is now up to over 11 hours left, I feel like I'm going backwards on a treadmill.

Sticking with it, but agree with many comments above that it's not as easy to get into as most.

[Sebastian]

I'm four chapters in and I have to say I'm a bit underwhelmed. It's an okay-ish YA story but I don't see what all the fuss is about. I hope it improves but thus far, I'm with the lukewarm folks.

[Oleksandr]

Gabi wrote: "I'm one of the polarized folks. I read it last year and my first impression was "how pubertal" ^^'."

My thoughts too :)

[Laura]

Sebastian wrote: "I'm four chapters in and I have to say I'm a bit underwhelmed. It's an okay-ish YA story but I don't see what all the fuss is about. I hope it improves but thus far, I'm with the lukewarm folks."

I think it is considered adult or at least marketed as adult, I could be wrong though :) I'm not far in so I can't really decide for myself if it feels more YA to me.

[Banshee]

I'm surprised with how many people felt that the book was leaning towards YA. For me it always felt like a 100% adult novel. I didn't get even a touch of YA vibes.

[Jessica]

Oh I didn't feel it was YA-ish at all. I felt it was too "thick" for that (and I don't mean in word count).

[DivaDiane]

Christopher wrote: "One funny thing for me is watching Kindle's estimation of my reading speed. This book is so much denser than other recent books that I've read that the estimation keeps going higher each time I sit..."

That's funny! That's the way I feel with most books at first on Kindle. I'm a relatively slow reader supposedly, so the first chapter is usually going backwards on the treadmill.

[Beth]

Many people will reflexively categorize a book with a young adult's point of view as YA, whether the content or the marketing reflect that or not. I suspect we're gonna be sent to the "what is YA" thread soon though. :D

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

You should continue this in the--oh! Good job Beth haha

[Sebastian]

Oh, well, there wasn't really any intend on my part behind calling it a YA novel, it was just part of my first impression. It literally started with a teenager preparing to run away from home because she feels mistreated by the people around her. How it is categorized ultimately doesn't matter to my enjoyment (or lack thereof) of the book. Sorry, folks, I didn't mean to start a discussion about that.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Not a problem! YA is one of those terms that encourage Feelings, and all those feelings are valid--including not having strong ones!

[Mindy]

I am a slow reader and am only a couple of pages into the book. But I feel that despite the exterior crudeness of the dialogue and writing, the world building of the story is somewhat complex, right? I feel that all the death and skeletons may be some kind of metaphor for religion, especially taken in context of all the references to duty and prayer and such. I feel this makes it less-YAish or at the very least more interesting.

[Beth]

I'll be interested in seeing some follow-through on the topic of religion in the spoiler thread. (I have some thoughts on it, as well.)

[Meredith]

My first impression is based on reading the first 8 chapters free. I find the world/universe Muir is developing very interesting though the writing isn't really grabbing me. I was intrigued enough to get it from my library and keep going with the story.

[M.L.]

I like it right off. It's original and darkly humorous. Gideon is funny and likeable. First impression.

[Anna]

Sparrow Knight, would you please edit yout post a bit to make it first impressions friendly? Thanks! The spoiler thread will open very soon.

[Christopher]

Up to Chapter 8 and it's starting to flow a bit better.

[Evan]

First impressions are pretty "what?" like a lot of others have said here, but that's pretty typical for most sci-fi I've read tbh.

The setting and premise seem interesting at least, looking forward to wherever this goes.

[Joon]

TBH I'm not even sure why I decided to give this one a go. Necromancers aren't my thing at all, and I went into it not really knowing anything else about it, but kind of expecting I'd bail early.

But I got to 15% fairly quickly and without complaint; the prose is intriguing enough to drag me through the chaotic beginning.

I sure do hope I find a character to like though! May be blasphemy but so far I'm not in love with Gideon. That much snark is off-putting.

[Stephan]

I only got through reading it because of a book club. I was trying to goto my first one and that was the book they chose. Otherwise I'd never have read it. I don't think so. The first few pages were a mess. I had to re-read them to figure out what the author was trying to say...that would have stopped it for me right there.

Nothing else bothered me in the beginning. Even the unlikely holdovers from our "modern" era ALL THE WAY THAT FAR INTO THE FUTURE. I just ignored it.

[Stephan]

Laurie wrote: "This book came off a library hold after I'd started reading other things. I gave it one chapter, and I guess the author's prose and my reading style are not a great match. I see final verdicts are ..."

I think it depends on your temperament. The story definitely has its moments. Anyone that knows me will attest to my being a finicky reader. As picky as I am, I'll push through something if the story comes together (as painful as that can be). I wasn't a fan of how this started in the beginning either. One thing that kept me going was that I didn't know all the words and I had to look things up. That's SO rare these days that I relished it. The second was that I wanted to be able to talk about it with others. I'd recommend you read it. I think it's worth it, but this is NOT my favorite story. It does have merit, despite its flaws.

[Philip]

I am a little late to start this and I am only 100 pages in. Like some other members my first impression is "what the heck!" but in a good way.

[Christopher]

I’m at 30% and finding my interest level is low, forcing myself to trudge through one chapter a day. I think part of it is that I don’t feel a strong sense of place so I can’t envision all the scenes and I don’t feel any emotional connection to a character. I feel almost like I’m watching a vide gamer’s stream for a game I don’t know the rules or goal of an the streamer is silent.

[Kayla]

I've just started the audio-book version. The audible narrator does a good job of conveying the details clearly. Good so far. :)

[Joon]

I've read that the audio narrator was very good. Now that I'm a ways into it, maybe I'll switch over for a bit.

[Raucous]

This inspired me to listen to the preview. The narrator is indeed quite good.

Gideon the Ninth is also part of Audible's member appreciation sale ($5.00 US for the next few days). I haven't been great at focusing on reading actual fiction words on a page these days so this sounds like just my thing. Thanks for the pointer.

[Tom]

I just passed the halfway mark in the audio and thought I should drop in and see what is happening here. I'm less than thrilled with this book. The world-building is innovative and original but the characters are without exception self-obsessed, bitter and thoroughly unlikable. It is difficult to enjoy a book when you don't give a damn what happens to its characters.
I'm also still at the 'what?' stage which is not encouraging this far along in the book.
I'm not sure if the reader who described it as pubertal intended to use that word but the word I was thinking of is puerile.
I'll probably finish this but I may read a time travel story next so that I can go back to before I started this and choose the other selection instead.