KJ’s Reviews > Harrow the Ninth > Status Update

Well, it did get... better? It got more compelling. I think the problem is that it is fueling all of the reader's engagement by relying on their fondness for characters established in the previous book. The new characters introduced are not interesting or sympathetic; the glimpses of preexisting characters are only there to remind you that this series had a heart before. I don't know.

Hmm. Hmmmm. I think that, if this were a standalone or the first in the series, I'd have marked it DNF by now. Action unclear, new characters uninteresting, compared to the blazing introductions of Gt9th. I keep going out of hope it will find its footing, and my heart... But I have a terrible fear I'll have to consider Gideon a single novel with no followup, like The Traitor Baru Cormorant.