 Hey guys it's Leigh Ann and I'm here today to talk about Gideon the Ninth. If you don't know where I'm wearing glasses it's because you haven't read Gideon the Ninth. I'm gonna do a non-spoiler section in the beginning, wearing I will wear these glasses, then I will take them off and do spoilers. So you know you may not know why I'm wearing glasses per se but you know in the context of this video why this is happening. Did I like Gideon the Ninth? I find it very difficult to discuss this book to rate it. I found it difficult to read. I find it very difficult to explain. So this is gonna be a great video. Gideon the Ninth if you haven't heard of it. I think it missed the hype train. It is I think being pitched, being promoted as lesbian necromancers in space which both under and over sells it. It is technically that. There's a lot you can do with those ingredients that's really those are just ingredients. So like if you saw a bunch of ingredients laid out in a kitchen you could have some guesses what somebody could cook with it but there's a lot of different ways you could go. So those are just some ingredients that are in there for sure that's accurate. Gideon the Ninth plot wise it doesn't really have a plot for most of the book which is why I found it difficult to read and why I find it difficult to talk about. So at the outset Gideon is in the ninth house and is trying to leave the ninth house. You don't really know why but she is prevented from leaving the ninth house by her arch nemesis who then says you're gonna come with me to this other place and be my bodyguard and if you do that then I'll set you free. And then Gideon goes with her nemesis toots at other place where she is her bodyguard where a whole lot more nothing happens and then two thirds three quarters of the way through the book we get like a rip roaring totally had my attention close circle mystery story that I was super here for and then the end lost me again. So that's why I find it difficult to read for that section that it had my attention and interest it had my attention and my interest and I thought to myself when I got there finally after not DNFing it that if it continues to hold my interest through to the end I'll give it a three. It didn't so I gave it a two. It's been compared to Nevernight and I see why but the plot is nothing like Nevernight so I think the reason it's compared to Nevernight is because Gideon is irreverent and sarcastic and stabby and queer and those elements from Nevernight of Mia slash Mr. kindly because he's pretty snarky are present in Gideon the Ninth. So if that's like your jam is having a stabby irreverent queer sarcastic lead then this book's got that that's all you want it hundred percent has that in spades but where Jay Kristoff over delivered on the world building i extensive footnotes Gideon the Ninth has next to no world building for most of the book I kept asking why are we here where is here who are these people why should I care about any of this what are their motivations what are the stakes what world are we in none of this is answered ever I get the sense from the book that it wasn't something that anyone felt needed to be answered it just like wasn't a question in terms of the book it was a question I had those were questions many questions that I had the book was like that sucks so if you don't give any shits about world building again Gideon the Ninth you'll probably love it because it is like irreverent queer stabby necromancers in space so if you like just want to see people making bad sometimes good jokes and lots of stab stab skeletons being reanimated people hating each other you're not exactly sure why but they definitely do and then finally quite a creepy close circle mystery that like full on definitely had my attention and then back to nothing again you'll love getting in the night it was not for me that said I will read the next book because uh mainly I want to know if any of my world building questions ever get answered because I kind of feel like they have to be because we're just we have to go to another place in the next book you have to so I will be curious but no so I think that's all I can say without spoilers so if you haven't been getting in the ninth bye so like pretty much what I just said like I have all these questions about the world building or lack thereof so in the beginning when Gideon is trying to leave we just get that she wants to leave which fine that's that's not really a motivation though that's just like an activity like a goal for the present but I don't know why and I don't know why I should root for it and I don't know why I should be I should be sad if that's not attained just that I get the Gideon really really wants to leave so there's this like animosity between Gideon and Harrow which again is not compelling because I don't really know why I don't really know why Harrow would have reason to hate Gideon I don't really know why Gideon hates Harrow other than that Harrow seems to hate Gideon but they're working together so that's fine I guess and then we get to this other place and all these other houses are there and they're not really well described or explained so I don't really know where they come from where are these other houses are they all other planets are they stations that are man-made where did they like what how relevant are they to the larger world like is this just like this own little cult that's only relevant to itself if the Freemasons or the Mormons or whatever had a summit and decided to like kill each other where like it's kind of a thing that might be reported on the news but the outcome doesn't really affect anyone but the people involved or are these people that like are kind of in charge of the world is that the stakes because I have no idea I've read the book and I have no fucking idea and Gideon herself you find out way later when we're into the closed circle mystery part that she's apparently but harboring guilt which feeds into her hatred of Harrow because she blames herself for Harrow's parents death which I didn't have to know that it's the parents death that is bothering Gideon but I never ever ever felt from her that she was feeling guilty about something she just hated Harrow and was very self-righteous about it so just having like an inkling that there's something else at play something for me to ask and wonder and then I want to find out I didn't know there was a thing to find out and then I found it out and I was like since when do you feel guilty that didn't come across in like overtly or in subtext you've just been pissy and self-righteous so like the fact that your outward behavior would be pissy and self-righteous but you'd be harboring guilt like that would be different and it would make me more interested because I'd be like why do you feel guilty there's more to this relationship it's more complicated which when I found that out I was like there's more to this relationship it's more complicated but it was like two-thirds through the book already so I was like it's too late that's interesting but like I kind of don't care anymore you waited too long and again the closed circle mystery I finally was interested but even then I was still like who are these people they would constantly have these scenes where everyone's in there and they're all talking and they're all doing stuff and I'm like who what what do they look like who where are they from and they kind of allude to what each of them specializes in in terms of necromantic abilities I couldn't keep track of that and even when they told it to me I was like I don't know what's funny that means so I hope I don't need to because I don't know what's going on and I don't care about it because I don't again because of the like the stakes for the world it seems like because Gideon hates Harrow that I shouldn't really want Harrow to like win if winning is what we're doing are we even winning is that what's going on here like is it like a triwizard tournament but with nine necromancers from different houses and bodyguards or what so I shouldn't root for Harrow because I don't think she should be in charge of a world of Gideon hates her and I'm rooting for Gideon I think but I don't know why I should root for any other people to run the world if that's what you get at the end of said competition and again are you running the world after that or are you just kind of the head of your own little cult and no one gives a shit I have no idea what the stakes are or the context or like these different philosophies that these other houses purport to a spouse they again how do they affect the larger world do they affect the larger world does anyone care about what they think do they care about what they think are they just relics of an old time and no one cares like I'd no context no context so it's very difficult for me to place this like the stakes and it doesn't have to be huge stakes it's fine if it's its own little cult I just want to know that I want to know what this is going to affect because for Gideon to give a shit about what's going on around Gideon what she's possibly willing to well how far she's willing to go to support Harrow to be free and at what point she's going to say maybe the world is more important if the world is the stakes is world to the stakes I don't know now the like reveal about Dulcinea I didn't know specifically that that would be it but like pretty much from the moment that she was sickly and helpless I was like so she's probably the big bad because anytime you have somebody who's so like obviously and so purposely physically incapable of doing things in a in a story where everyone else is extremely physically capable and you have a close circle mystery okay it's gonna be it's always the person that's like in the wheelchair couldn't couldn't have done it it's always that person so it's like she's either masterminding this um from the her sick bed or she's not really sick so I was kind of right kind of on both counts so I again didn't know the specifics of it but that could have been less obvious and it would have it's still the close circle mystery had my attention it creeped me out that could have been less obvious and then the hate to hate love with Gideon and Harrow also saw that coming don't approve of it and it it I was talking to my friend about this and I don't know how to feel about it because I can't help but because it seems to me that we're meant to like it because it's queer that Gideon and Harrow would be a thing but Harrow is horrible and the abusive power over Gideon is reprehensible so if Gideon was to fall in love with her oppressor which is what Harrow is I don't care if it's queer that's not okay ever that's not okay in a male female relationship female male relationship male male female female and you have abusive power mixing in with like romantic and physical attraction that's yikes I don't care who's involved so it definitely wasn't shipping it and I didn't really know Gideon or Harrow and if I had a sense for this complexly layered gray relationship that expresses itself largely in hatred and violence but underpinning it is all of this guilt and baggage then I would have been invested in finding out what that turns into not invested in shipping it but invested in seeing how that morphs changes develops and affects their ability to work together but I only found out about the baggage like three quarters of the way through the book at which point I was like that that's all that's a lot of context for what you guys are doing here and how you talk to each other but it's way too late and again I didn't need to know the baggage I just needed to know that there was baggage so that I could be like what's the baggage what's the baggage what's the baggage then I find it out like oh shit that's a great baggage as opposed to wait what there's baggage since when and then yeah and then at the end so the close circle mystery had my full attention and I was genuinely creeped out and like I didn't care about any other character so when they were falling and dying I couldn't tell if I was meant to give a shit because I definitely didn't I found it interesting I was curious about which ones were being killed often why those ones specifically like who's benefiting from those deaths it's just a puzzle I don't I hope I wasn't meant to be emotionally invested in any of them dying because I wasn't I was only marginally invested in Gideon and Harrow surviving and then when we found out the big reveal about the big bad and it was Dalsanae and then it turns into this long battle with the like the big boss at the end basically and really the only thing left for me to give a shit about is the will building questions that by then I was like these will not get answered I'd have to accept this and then the will they are won't they love and or die for Gideon and Harrow and I didn't really care if they lived or loved so the end battle it went on and on and on and I was like can someone please just die I don't care either it's the bad guy or our heroes someone needs to die so this can end because I don't care so yeah I'm giving the night those not my cup of tea and it there was a lot in there that I can see why it would appeal to people who don't ask those questions automatically like where are we why are we here if you don't care about where we are and why we're here you'll probably love Gideon the ninth because the humor like was good I there was a lot of humor both from like Gideon talking like jokes Gideon would make that were funny and then a lot of things just sort of in the narrator describing things that were kind of quirky and funny and I found that interesting and unique and again all the book was extremely unique I don't know anything that I would compare to other than Nevernight and only Nevernight because of the irreverence Dabby queer character nothing about the bones of the plot forgive the pun there's a lot of bones and there's nothing about the plot that's like Nevernight so it's uniqueness gets points originality gets points and the style of the prose is fairly unique but please give me some context something either for internal struggle and motivation or external stakes at least one of the two and I got neither so they couldn't get invested into the characters and I couldn't understand the stakes and therefore be invested in the outcome of this story because of the world and that will be affected I was like why do I give a shit about any of this the characters don't even seem to give a shit about any of this other than like not wanting to die and some of them seemed okay with dying so let me know in the comments down below how you felt about Kiddie in the Ninth why I assume you've read it if you made it to this point in the video if you watched it because you didn't plan to read Kiddie in the Ninth and now are thinking damn I wish I had read Kiddie in the Ninth instead of spoiling myself or even though I've been spoiled now I really want to read Kiddie in the Ninth or man dodge to pull it there you know whatever your reaction is let me know I post videos on Saturdays so you can subscribe and I'll see you next Saturday