Nona the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir

[rachelmanija]

I gather that Nona was a controversial book in this series. It ended up being the one I liked best. It had the fewest memes and the ones it did have made more sense in the text, most of the first half involved daily life in a weird setting which is a type of book I very much enjoy, and I absolutely loved Nona herself. She is not only the most likable character in the entire series, but is the only character in the series who is generally having a good time. Writers are often advised to not let their characters have a good time; Nona stands as a shining example of how a generally happy character can be incredibly compelling.

Nona is a teenager with autism and cognitive disabilities who loves dogs (one six-legged) and her friend group of traumatized refugee kids, and is looking forward to her birthday. She's cared for by three extremely odd people with complicated relationships to each other. They're all living on a planet where necromancers are killed if spotted. It's the first place we've seen in the series where people are leading something resembling normal lives or have actual jobs other than "skeleton cultist" or "immortal planet-killer." A lot of people there are poor and traumatized refugees, there's a fair amount of crime, and oh yeah a giant blue thing in the sky is drastically hampering normal life and is also probably going to destroy the planet and kill everyone, but people are at least attempting to live their lives in the midst of this.

Nona also has Wolverine-like healing powers, was born six months ago, and is a soul living in/possessing someone else's body. The people caring for her are trying to figure out who she is: the person the body belongs to, now with amnesia and a completely different personality? Someone else entirely? They really, really need to figure this out, under pressure from multiple powerful forces. But Nona remembers nothing.

Also, we get flashbacks to God's past and how he became God. These are both horrific and darkly funny.

All else is spoilers.



I laughed my ass off at John creating a wall of cows and then being baffled at everyone being horrified.

I loved Nona so much, and was SO SAD that she died. This felt like a permanent death, which if true is SO SAD. Nona and Hot Sauce having their final meeting, and Nona being told that it was important that she loved and was loved, is so heartbreaking.

I couldn't tell if Gideon possessing her own dead body was acting weird, or if she just came across weirdly because we were seeing her filtered through Nona.

The epilogue with Alecto was extremely creepy but I did laugh at "Get in line, you slut."

Camilla, Palamedes, and Pyrrha seem to both genuinely love Nona as Nona, and not feel conflicted about the fact that they're trying to get Harrow/whoever Nona really is back, which will destroy Nona's personality. This would normally be the central conflict of this kind of setup, but it's not touched on at all and the plot specifically ensures that it won't ever become a conflict because it turns out that Nona can't survive no matter what.

I'm curious where it all will go if we ever do get the Alecto book, which I gather is extremely late. I assume Muir knows where it's going given that the action of Nona was originally supposed to be its prologue. I can see how the story absolutely could have worked as a prologue, but I'm glad we got a whole book.

Comments

[eglantiere]

i think they began operating on the possibility that Nona is either Harrow or Gideon regressed/traumatized/amnesiac, and that they'll get some echo of Nona assimilated into their grown up personas when they get them back. and then, well, things escalated. but also thematically the whole series are about change and grief and loss and how you can't help losing but it also doesn't mean you lose, you know?

[silverblade219]

I only seen good reviews of Nona, so didn’t realize it was controversial. It was my favorite also, and the spoilers for this one were what originally made me decide to read the series.

[pauraque]

This is my favorite book in the series too.

[alatefeline]

I really enjoyed Nona too. So far the only consistency of the books in this series for me has been that each one was mind-boggling in a new and different way.

[daidoji_gisei]

It’s true. I am very impressed that Muir has written three very weird books that were weird in different ways.

[gelliaclodiana]

Camilla, Palamedes, and Pyrrha seem to both genuinely love Nona as Nona, and not feel conflicted about the fact that they're trying to get Harrow/whoever Nona really is back, which will destroy Nona's personality.

I thought they did feel conflicted -- at least, that was the sense I got from their interactions? But they were under so much pressure about her, and grieving for so many things all at once, that it was easy for Nona not to notice it.

[musesfool]

NOODLE! <333

I laughed my ass off at John creating a wall of cows and then being baffled at everyone being horrified.

Cows watch sunsets, man! 🤣🤣🤣

[likeadeuce]

I love 'Nona' so much

[thomasyan]

wow, I remember very little of this book, except that I liked it, and definitely want the next book.

Your reviews made me go reread Gideon, which was great. Except it interrupted my read of When We Were Real, so once I was done, I didn't have time to post about it because I had go read WWWR before it was due back. Will have to post about both!

[skygiants]

Also joining the list of people for whom this one was the favorite! It was just so satisfying to finally see real people living some kind of real lives in a semi-functional society, after two books of incredibly claustrophobic necromancy set pieces.

[jazzfish]

My understanding is that Muir has been knocked around by long covid, hence the delays, but is making sufficient progress on Alecto that it may yet see the light of day.

I -think- Gideon's weirdness is like 30% normal-Gideon-filtered-through-Nona (or anyone; this is the first time we've seen Gideon from the outside), 60% "Gideon is acting weird because that's what's expected / what gets her closer to Harrow," and 10% weirdness from the resurrection.

At this point my main objection to Nona is that we won't get any more of Camilla Hect, who was objectively the best character.