Nona the Ninth

by Tamsyn Muir

Hardcover, 496 pages

Published Sept. 12, 2022

ISBN:: 978-1-250-85411-7

(102 reviews)

Her city is under siege. The zombies are coming back. And all Nona wants is a birthday party. In many ways, Nona is like other people. She lives with her family, has a job at her local school, and loves walks on the beach and meeting new dogs. But Nona's not like other people. Six months ago she woke up in a stranger's body, and she's afraid she might have to give it back. The whole city is falling to pieces. A monstrous blue sphere hangs on the horizon, ready to tear the planet apart. Blood of Eden forces have surrounded the last Cohort facility and wait for the Emperor Undying to come calling. Their leaders want Nona to be the weapon that will save them from the Nine Houses. Nona would prefer to live an ordinary life with the people she loves, with Pyrrha and Camilla and Palamedes, but …

3 editions

Chris he/they reviewed Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb, #3)

Tired of Necromancers? See the rest of the world in this edition!

4 stars

Content warning Spoilers: for world-building backstory, no plot or action is spoiled.

If you enjoyed either of the previous books, you should read this one too. It has slightly less of the confusing start that Harrow the Ninth had, but there are still significant questions raised in early chapters. The narrative follows everyday life in a city of resistance to the necromancers, giving us important perspective and adding much needed nuance to the series.

One of my favorite aspects of this book is the world-building around the development of necromancy. The Emperor Undying was a simple geneticist trying to help save Earth from the ravages of anthropogenic climate change when he stumbled upon the secrets to death itself. This is also the first book that makes clear that the Necrolord Prime is Māori, a detail that isn't too relevant to the plot but adds lovely details to this cryptic world.

This book has the strongest cliffhanger of all so far, and I'm ecstatic to read Alecto the Ninth when it releases.

flarion reviewed Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb, #3)

Review of 'Nona the Ninth' on 'Storygraph'

3 stars

Great book bit I understood nothing.

Matt K reviewed Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb, #3)

Bewildering and fun

5 stars

Third book, third voice, everyone has a new damn name and the dog has too many legs.

I’m probably gonna reread and maybe understand more of the ride I was on.

Mickey reviewed Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb, #3)

Review of 'Nona the Ninth' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

4/5

Ahh Nona. So naive and child like, so curious and loving and yet also slightly annoying at how little she understands. She was a very different character compared to Gideon and Harrow, essentially their opposites. It was a fresh take on the world to see everything in such a light and it made it a lot easier to follow.

Once again though we go through the story with the perspective of someone who had very little understanding of what is happening and it leaves it all up to the reader to figure out. I enjoyed the puzzle though, there were enough clues to figure out quite a bit. Though I still have many questions, so hopefully the next book will wrap things up well.

Overall it felt like a very long setup for a grand finale. I’m not sure it was all necessary, but it was a good book …

Nikko reviewed Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb, #3)

Review of 'Nona the Ninth' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Charming bits, but the framing of the same character losing their memory at the start of each book(or at least kinda...it's complicated) lost a bit of it's luster this time around.

jfml reviewed Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb, #3)

Tbh I have no idea what's going on anymore

3 stars

that's probably due to that fact that it's been so long that I listened to the first books and also that english is not my first language. The first part with the kids was kinda boring for looooong stretched especially comparing to the first to books, things picked up in the end but as I said I had no idea what was going on anymore.

But Hotsauce is cool ^__^

Itzayana reviewed Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb, #3)

Nona Loves You

5 stars

I love this book so much. This series really benefits from having read the whole thing in a row, and this is the first time I've read it like this. This story is so much about love and how we love those around us, specifically this book is about the love between a found family and how important it is to care for those around us especially in tough times. The story is so touching, and Muir balances it perfectly with her brand of humor. I was laughing through my tears. "Life is too short and love is too long" "You can't take loved away"

Zivan reviewed Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb, #3)

Review of 'Nona the Ninth' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

The unique thing about Nona is that she is a sympathetic character.

Gideon and to a lesser extent Harrow grated on me. Nona is a child and the combination of her innocence and her necromancy is captivating.

Daniel Darabos reviewed Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb, #3)

Review of 'Nona the Ninth' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

In book 1 you fall in love with Gideon, and in book 2 Gideon is gone. Even deleted from memory. Eventually you fall in love with Harrow, so guess how much Harrow we get in book 3! Once again it's less than none. Is this a pattern? Is this series with non-stop death and skeletons possibly meant to make me think about loss?

Other than Gideon and Harrow, what else was good in the first two books? I guess skeletons, magic, and spaceships were cool. So those are also deleted. Thinking about loss yet?! Hope you like going to school in the projects! Just in case you thought that could be fun, let's delete your capacity to read and write and think complex thoughts. Perfect!

This violent approach to destroying everything the reader loves sounds funny, but it's a huge risk too. It only works if you can again invent a character to fall in love with and a great setting for them. Yep, that happens again. Nona is awesome.

The book is a bit of a slow start. Nothing happens in the first half. (You liked plot? No plot for you!) But Nona & friends are an interesting bunch, so even their everyday lives are pretty cool. The broken-down environment with some magic that nobody cares about and a huge monster looming above the city... Is this [b:Borne|31451186|Borne (Borne, #1)|Jeff VanderMeer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1477487850l/31451186.SX50.jpg|48253660]? The dream sequences start out incomprehensible, but become a pretty exciting infodump very fast.

In all three books the ending was so quick and complex that I forgot them right away. I just finished book 3 and I couldn't tell you what happened beyond that they got to the Locked Tomb. The rest is a dream-like blur. I wonder if this is intended or I just didn't pay enough attention. Anyway, I can't wait for book 4! I hope it comes out this year.

Also on the topic of loss: Gideon is back. She's still talking smack and is kind of funny. But we see her through Nona's eyes now and all the charm is gone. The Gideon we loved is dead! It's her corpse walking. Fantastic work on that. But I'm still rooting for a true resurrection! All I want for book 4 is to just take the 3 characters we love, and put them on stage together! (Nona can be Alecto.)

Michael Steeves reviewed Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb, #3)

Third in the series

4 stars

So, sadly I am yet again reminded that I am old. I'm no longer able to keep details of these series in my mind so that I can read the next installment a year or more later, and also don't have the free time to take a week and just plow through all the previous books as a refresher (how much time did I lose to rereading all the Robert Jordan books all those years ago....?).

That having been said, I did not do a bad job at recalling what had gone before here. Still a fair bit of "Wait, who was that character again?" but overall I was able to follow the plot and know what was going on relatively well. Still a puzzle/mystery to figure out what was going on in this book, but also got some good backstory to help fill in some of the bigger picture …

I definitely have "re-read all three books" on my early 2023 list, which will help in really wrapping my head around the plot and what's going on.

anaulin reviewed Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb, #3)

Fun new Ninth character, more Locked Tomb universe backstory

5 stars

Nona, the new Ninth character is different and very amusing. The setting is a planet with "regular" humans, and there is more backstory filled in on John/God and the general shape of the Locked Tomb universe.

no <3 reviewed Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb, #3)

Review of 'Nona the Ninth' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

April 11th, 2022 (2nd read)
first half was my favorite! (going through a character's life with all their opinions overlayed is my bread and butter lol)
second half was confusing but very interesting. I keep thinking about the concept of a "perfect Lyctorhood" and it gives me a headache in the best possible way

arcanaemia reviewed Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb, #3)

Wasted Potential

3 stars

Content warning Thoughts on Nona the Ninth, spoilers for the Locked Tomb series

I think my final opinion of Nona the Ninth is extremely biased by finding out at the end that it wasn't the end of the trilogy as expected. About halfway through, I was still kinda just enjoying the ride, watching some pieces of info come together, picking up some additional background. I wasn't super into Nona as a character, but whatever. Then I got to the end, and the Big Twist, and suddenly the entire book felt like a waste.

I thoroughly enjoyed both the Gideon and Harrow books. I appreciated how Harrow was just batshit insane and a very unreliable narrator in her book, and how different it was from the first. It was a pretty chaotic ride. I think if Nona had actually wrapped up the storyline, it would have made the meandering and needless code naming of prior characters worth it. Instead, it was just very unsatisfying to me. It felt like filler.

Thoughts on Nona the Ninth, spoilers for the Locked Tomb series

I do still very much enjoy Tamsyn Muir's writing style. I would not call this a "bad" book. As I said, I am likely biased because I expected this book to wrap up the trilogy. All the same, I will likely not read the next book until there are plenty of reviews out so I can find out if there will be yet another bait and switch.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus is still one of the best names I've read anywhere.

jon_bon reviewed Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb, #3)

Review of 'Nona the Ninth' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Ja, mycket mer sammanhållen än förra boken. Finns faktiskt en röd råd. Ganska intressanta funderingar, mystik. Intressanta karaktärer. En stark trea. Muir inte någon favvisförfattare, men det är möjligt att jag läser uppföljaren när den kommer nästa år. Om jag orkar. Hajpen däremot tycker jag är närmast absurd, visst är det välskrivet, men det finns många andra bättre val inom fantasy/sci-fi/rymdopera.

Tak! reviewed Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb, #3)

Nona the Ninth

5 stars

It shouldn't be possible, after reading Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth, to finish another Locked Tomb novel and yet again be like "What the hell did I just read?!" However.

Nona the Ninth is yet another wonderful, unexpected, weird masterpiece from Tamsyn Muir.