Everyone in TLT Should Smoke Weed

I am rereading Gideon the Ninth and one of the funniest scenes in the whole book gotta be the scene where Gideon (has never had a hot beverage in her life) knocks back half a cup of boiling tea. And then just stands there suffering in silence. Imagine being Jeannemary Chatur or someone and seeing the super cool and mysterious Shadow Cultist from the Ninth House just absolutely SHOTTING a cup of piping hot tea. and then trying to play it cool. I would lose it.

nona the ninth is a fucking roller coaster from start to finish. it's the third book in a series and it starts with three returning characters who were barely in book 2 and everyone else is new. It follows a gravity falls arc in tone, ie it starts as a slightly weird slice of life story and by the end they're fighting ancient eldritch abominations from actual hell, and not a moment in that transition feels out of place or jarring. our first impression of the main character is the list of people she wants at her birthday party and the first five names on the list are dogs. our last impression of her is some of the most heartbreaking dialogue ever written.

I was reading Gideon the Ninth right before my egg cracked. The reviews said Griddle was so funny. I read it and all I saw was a traumatised woman having a particularly Kiwi response to pain: she can’t just say it hurts, so she turns everything into a joke. It’s her only outlet, the only socially-acceptable way to seize back any power. I don’t see a funny girl, I see a girl who is doing everything not to scream. Imagine being a woman in this society; imagine being a queer woman in this society; imagine being a trans woman. To be a good Kiwi is to be tough, resolute, to never cry out, to not be a fucking girl. Imagine being asked to be petite and gentle and feminine but not too gentle and feminine because that’s weakness, and we abhor weakness. Women everywhere must ride a razor of incompatible expectations, but the particularly Kiwi manifestation of that evil is that women must be women without ever being fucking girls. No softness, no weakness, no vulnerability, no crying. That’s the bear trap Gideon Nav has found herself in. Hell, she’s not even allowed to speak, so she’s laughing while waiting for the jaws to snap her leg off, because what else can she do? The Ninth House is built on buried women.