User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
Ninth House has a very sexy premise:
In Leigh Bardugo’s first offering to the adult genre, Yale University wears claws hidden in a velvet glove, magic doesn't require skill so much as a steady lavishing of grotesqueries, and men in power use their loyalty to underground societies to further their own ambitions—without counting the cost.
Peering down from a lofty chair at the rest of the societies is
House of Lethe, standing guard to ensure that their unwholesome affairs will not tip them into whirling chaos. To this end, Lethe needs someone who can see ghosts. Galaxy "Alex" Stern trails an army of ghosts that only she can see. They are clearly a matchmaker’s dream.
Alex throws herself at Lethe's offer and the chance to scrub her past clean, even when ordered to follow at Darlington’s heels like an obedient shadow. The problem is,
Daniel “Darlington” Arlington sees Alex a little too clearly. However adequate Alex's lies are, Darlington’s gaze, fastened on her, is a mirror that grants a ruinous glimpse of herself. Now there is a fog creeping along at both of their heels, swallowing their footsteps and erasing their evidence, and when a girl winds up dead and Darlington melts to nothing before Alex’s eyes, the wrongness of Lethe, of Yale, of what they're doing is inescapable.
Darlington believed they were safe in Lethe—they were the
shepherds, after all—but Alex knew Lethe only bestows the kind of protection that weighs and measures before it finds you worthy. The societies will always have a comfortable veil of money between them and the rest of the world, but when the deal Alex made falls through, she will once again be powerless. Alex, however, is a survivor. And survivors are harder to kill.
“Mors irrumat omnia. Death fucks us all.”
As I said, a very sexy premise. But actually reading this book felt as if I had been catfished. I kept asking myself: how it is it that I am not enjoying a book that is so perfectly calculated to be my literary ideal? And here, I think, is the answer.
Bardugo has always been good at fully bringing to life a place most of us can't pretend to know, and has already displayed a great gift for plot in her YA Grisha-verse books.
Ninth House, however, has nothing of the vivid and mordant storylines that made Bardugo's previous books so winning. Despite its flashes of poignant beauty—there is a recurrent scene from this book that surfaces in my mind again and again, like an obsessive undercurrent in a dream: Alex standing, like a temple icon to an evil goddess, (“
night ebbed and flowed around her in a cape of glittering stars”), and Darlington with a sword in his back that felled him to his knees, to
her mercy, his plea of “
Choose me” a frantic, unspoken chant—
Ninth House’s blend of the mundane and the magical did not tip far enough to the latter for me. Bardugo also favors detailed explication over keeping a steady pace, and it’s problematic when the flow of the story is hampered by its slow build and lack of major plot movement. Some naïve corner of my mind kept holding its breath in expectation, but though the back-and-forth structure eventually takes on a deeper resonance as more secrets are gradually unearthed, I’m not sure it’s enough to forgive.
The hefty list of trigger warnings that accompanies this book is wild, and also true.
Ninth House is definitely not for the squeamish. I don't know anyone who can read some of these scenes without their minds recoiling from the sheer
wrongness of it. That said, Bardugo sometimes tries too hard for big, dramatic horror, and the violence comes off as gratuitous. As a result, I was deeply (and, as it turned out, accurately) concerned that some of the themes would just be dolloped on top of the story to serve for shock value.
Ninth House is about all kinds of trauma, yet I found that the consequences of such a monumental thing are barely brushed upon. The novel is rife with flashbacks, seen through Alex’s eyes as she passively witnesses the horrifying events of her past, but her trauma-suppressed memories only resurface whenever it's convenient for the plot, and without much of a statement being made besides, which occasionally struck a sour note.
Ultimately, this is the novel’s biggest misstep for me—that it curiously avoids fully engaging with the meat of its themes. At points in
Ninth House, it seems that Bardugo is setting herself up to make a deep point about privilege and power—mystical, emotional, institutional—and what happens when it's abused, even in small quiet ways, but nothing satisfying comes of it. And though the driving force of the narrative is a classic whodunit, with Bardugo structuring the book like a detective yarn of sorts, it doesn't real work: Alex is sharp, but the narrative hands her a few too many gifts, so whatever revelations she makes fall a bit flat.
The emotional register of
Ninth House, too, is of a different order from either of Bardugo’s previous works—for me, at least. I don’t feel that the novel managed to pierce the veil that separates the reader from the human puzzle pieces on the page. Alex is a difficult character to like. I found her largely stiff and drab, one of those characters that are so passive and colorless that you wonder why all these intriguing people around them don't ditch them and hang out with each other instead. There’s a roaring vitality to her that’s always just beneath the surface, though, and I wanted to poke at it until it gave way to something more.
Despite having considerably less page-time, Darlington’s character, on the other hand, manages to shine amid a constant barrage of wonders and grotesqueries. There’s an embodied presence to him, depth and information—and it kept me riveted throughout.
Darlington lived with an endless commotion inside. He permanently discontent with the ordinary and convinced of the existence of the extraordinary, never losing the unbruised part of himself that
believed in magic. There's something so touching about the way Darlington played this game, no matter how gruesomely it was stacked against him. He played it with a kind of mystic joy, always finding the beauty and magic in it. There's something here that speaks deeply to the thrill of being inside magic, instead of looking at it through a window. To be living it, to be a part of it, even when it was dangerous, even when it
hurt. I needed at least 100 more pages of Darlington just talking about his passion for magic, to be honest.
That was what magic did. It revealed the heart of who you’d been before life took away your belief in the possible. It gave back the world all lonely children longed for. That was what Lethe had done for him. Maybe it could do that for Alex as well.
Overall, I think
Ninth House inches in many interesting directions, but never really arrives to any of them. That said, I'll be reading the next installment just for more glimpses of Darlington.
Rating: really liked it
ARC acquired at Book Expo in exchange for an honest review. “There were always excuses for why girls died.”
Ninth House is a love letter to living and surviving unspeakable abuse. This is a book all about trauma, and PTSD, and healing, in any and every way that you can. This is a book for victims, who have felt they will never get the piece of them back that someone forcefully took. This is a book for anyone who was willing to do anything to feel empowered after something horrible occurred. This is a book about the dark and the light and the in between phases a human can go through to get their voice back.
But this is also a story about a girl named Galaxy Stern, or Alex, who is from LA, but is now across the country and studying at Yale. The book continuously switches back and forth from Late Spring to Winter, so we get to see what happened in the past and the ramifications it causes for present day Alex.
In the Winter, we get to see her starting Yale, meeting a man named Darlington, and learning all about the nine secret societies at Yale, with secret, magical rituals that they perform. Lethe recruits a new freshman every three years to join sixteen seniors every year, where they gain knowledge of the occult. And Alex was picked because she has a very sought-after ability, that she has been running from her entire life. Also, it is Lethe House’s responsibility as the ninth house to keep the others in order and make sure they aren’t doing bad things.
In the Spring, everything is different, and Alex is struggling with the weight of so much. From missing people, to ghosts who are paying her too much attention, to a girl being murdered that Alex can’t help but think was because of one of the secret societies, and she is willing to do anything to solve the case. Even if that means making a deal with one of the ghosts she is supposed to be ignoring.
“But the trouble had begun on a night in the full dark of winter, when Tara Hutchins died and Alex still thought she might get away with everything.”
Sounds pretty amazing, right? And I’m telling you, this book’s atmosphere, along with the campus setting, it was a perfect combination. Also, you all know that I think Leigh’s writing is a tier above most. The quotes I was able to pull from this book? They take the breath from my lungs even upon rereading them.
Also, this book has a beautiful discussion about privilege and power dynamics. Leigh does not hold back truth of what white, rich, privileged boys and how they feel they are entitled to any and everything, and God bless her for that. Cycles of abuse and entitlement truly can be passed down, leaving terrible things in their wake, which will impact so many victims for their entire lives. Unchecked privilege is a terrifying thing, friends. And Leigh is not scared to go there, in the terrible acts they commit, to the horrible ends they deserve, and I really appreciated it, and it may have been my favorite element of this book.
“Beautiful boys who should be happy, who wanted for nothing but still found things to take.”
But you all are probably wondering why I gave this book three stars. I’m going to be brutally honest, not much happened in this book, and surely enough didn’t happen for this book to be almost 500 pages. I feel like you could easily cut this book in half and it would have been way more impactful and way more exciting to read. As much as I loved the healing of this book, and I loved the premise of secret societies all about the occult, I just felt so damn bored by reading this book. It started to feel like a chore to pick up, and this book took me twice the amount of time it would normally take me to read.
It also started to feel so formulaic, where something really bad and heartbreaking would happen (past or present) then we’d have 50+ pages of nothing, and then something even worse happens, then 50+ of nothing. I will never lessen anyone’s trauma or how they choose to write and heal about it, but this book just made me feel nothing and then immeasurably uncomfortably and sadness, back to back to back, and it made for a really not great reading experience for me. Also, my favorite character was for sure Darlington, and I really wish we could have seen so much more of him. And lastly, the ending sort of wrapped this story up, I guess? But it just left me desiring so much more, and not in a good way if I’m being honest.
So, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. I picked this book up the day before twitter exploded about the trigger warnings. I will be honest, it made for such a strange reading experience, because I felt like everyone was looking at me, even though I was only 100 pages into this book. At the end of this review, like always, I will have all the trigger warnings that I found listed. This is a dark book, with very dark themes and elements, and some extremely dark scenes. Alex truly has horrible things happen to her and her loved ones throughout her short life. I highly recommend you make sure you are in a safe headspace before picking this one up, because a few of these triggers are not my own, but they still really bothered me to read.
“People didn’t need magic to be terrible to each other.”
Overall, this was a disappointment for me. This was easily my most anticipated release of 2019, besides
Queen of Nothing, and maybe I just put it on a pedestal subconsciously. I do think this one will be polarizing upon release, and I have friends who love this more than me and dislike this more than me. Honestly, I’m in this weird middle ground where I loved the setting and atmosphere, but I didn’t love the story or characters. I will probably still pick up the next installment, I think I’m just going to go into it with lower expectations.
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The quotes above were taken from an ARC and are subject to change upon publication.Content and Trigger Warnings: drug use, overdosing, murder, death, loss of a loved one, rituals, gore, PTSD depiction, grief depiction, self-harm, bloodletting, rape, child (12) rape (it is only two pages, but it is very graphic), statutory rape (15), sexual assault, forced sexual assault on video, talk of suicide, blackmail, physical abuse, a magical date rape drug, forced eating of human waste (to a rapist), and racism (always in a negative light).
Rating: really liked it
4.25/5 ⭐
Full review on my Blog: The Dacian She-Wolf 🐺
me: *seeing the whole anarchy this book has created* I wonder if I too can ruin my life
Oh, behold the majestic weird shit that I am, reading my first Leigh Bardugo book ever!
YES. You may laugh at me and judge me and all that, but honestly, this book has created some serious anarchy after publication, a type of anarchy that made me stop and think: “If this book makes people feel so intense, then it is a make it or break it for me for sure”. This book was about to be the ultimate answer to my eternal question – “Will I ever even like Leigh Bardugo?”
The answer to that lame question –
Yes. And I know that’s not even one of her greatest works.
Ninth House was and is (at least for me) a weird combination of delightful and crafty action, disgusting and unnecessary details and a perpetual feeling of cringe. But
I bloody loved it and that shows how much of next-level trash I can be.THERE IS NO YOUNG ADULT CONTENT HERE. And I mean it. For those who don’t really get along with (new) adult content, please put the book away or suck it up and read it on your own expense.
Disclaimer: it contains emotional triggers such as child molesting, alcohol and drug abuse, physical and psychical abuse, curse words, violence and other things in that particular area.
“Mors vincit irrumat omnia.” To be completely honest, I don’t know much about Yale and its organisational system or its secret societies or whatever voodoo is happening there at the moment. And even more honest, I don’t quite care. But bringing this topic in discussion and making a somehow “magical” experience out of it is quite interesting.
This society, Lethe, is there to supervise every abuse of magic the other eight secret societies are conducting. In reality, Lethe is a mess and they barely have a bloody idea what they are doing there, but you know, I’ve been to my current faculty for three years now and I have no idea what I’m doing either so Lethe, I got you bruh.
The action here seems to be purely symbolic in my opinion. I mean, things don’t really happen until the last 150 pages whatsoever. But the interesting thing is that when the whole mystery started to unravel, it kind of caught you off guard. I, for instance, was caught off guard by the whole ending and this hurts the Agatha Christie fan in me because it is literally a very easy-to-solve mystery.
Now, let’s talk about my favourite part:
Darlington.
Daniel Arlington aka Darlington is the so-called “gentleman of Lethe” and oh, doesn’t this world need more gentlemen? For real now, that’s an honest question.
Everyone loves Darlington. And I do too. And you’ll do too. I cannot explain that, but he’s got a sort of magnetic personality that fascinates everyone. He’s like the biggest geek on the planet meets the rich, upper-class boy meets the charismatic boy next door. He’s all that and he’s
precious.Galaxy Stern, a culturally ambiguous girl with a long record at the ready and a very comical but interesting name is not immune to Darlington’s charms. In fact, she might be as in love with him as the rest of us.
Alex sees ghosts. And she has been seeing them for all her life. Which is kind of disturbing? She was bullied for it and she became a broken girl. All that rebellion was purely a defence mechanism gone wrong. But after all, when life gives you sour lemons like that you have to make a sour lemonade and to try to sweeten it with everything you have at hand. Or to drink it as it is.
“We all have spaces we keep blank.” I am not very fond of Alex’s character just yet, she’s indeed a hard girl to love but I think she might grow on me after a while. I already love her wits so I just need another push to be sure I like her.
On the other hand, another great character of this book is Pamela Dawes whom I actually really love. Pammie is the mum-friend and there’s no way you’ll argue that after you come to know her. Hell, I’ll let her cook some lemon chicken soup for me anytime, that’s how amazing I think she is.
There’s a lot going on in this book. It is something hard to get into because the beginning is extremely confusing. The action is quite slow and not necessarily that complex, but somehow, until the end, there is something there. Something that leaves you thinking that you actually enjoy it.
It’s a complicated book to like, to be honest. But it has charm. There is something dark that keeps moving, twisting and turning.
(Book-inspired)
Rating: really liked it
Yesssss! I finished this book in one hour and got all references at one time. I turned into most intelligent book reading machine and started to turn two pages at a time (because my mind can already feel what’s written at the next page, unbelievable, isn’t it?) I didn’t get bored. I didn’t yawn or complain about my heavy eyelids because I was so alert and concentrated. And of course, I loved those characters so much, I never had an urge to slap one of them or hate any of them. They were memorable, amazing, marvelous and fantastic!
So after finishing this book, I went my culinary class and all of the students clapped me because I cooked an amazing soufflé, macaroons and paella in only 20 minutes.
Then I got a phone call from my husband suggested me to move to France and as a surprise he bought me a vineyard so we can raise our own grapes and produce our own wines! whaaaattt?
And at home Netflix CEO and Martin Scorsese were waiting for me, playing with dogs, drinking my Chardonnay! They bended on their knees and begged me to work with them as my neighbors giving me a trophy for being “the most honorable and loveable neighbor of the city”! COME AGAIN???!
Then I heard a voice and realized Tom Ellis standing in our living room, asking me: “Tell me, what is that you truly desire?” Yesssss!!!
THEN I SUDDENLY WOKE UP!
Oh Come on, Martie and Lucifer Morningstar weren’t at my house! Damn it!
Do you know why? Because first 100 pages of this book gave me an urge to perform hara-kiri by using my kindle. I even found myself murmuring Japanese words ( Only Japanese words I know: the menu of my favorite sushi place, so this book made me achieve something impossible!)
So if you know my address, you can stop by for throwing rotten tomatoes, eggs and screaming “Idiot! What’s wrong with you? Aren’t you intelligent enough to understand the story?” But at first you need to pass my crazy neighbor who sings BOYZ II Men songs day and night. (I’m not exaggerating, yesterday I woke up with his singing “End of the road” in the most ear bleeding tune!)
I read too many good reviews and I truly love this author’s works and this is at the top of my most anticipated books of this year! So as soon as I get my hands on it, I jumped up down, danced, yelled, and somersaulted. As a summary I did all those mature things a regular 40 years old crazy lady could perform!
But as soon as I started to read, I thought that something wrong with me because I felt like I disconnected with the book as if somebody pulled off my plug or turned my brain cells’ functioning off. I felt like Jim Carrey from Dumb and Dumber, giving blank looks to the walls as my saliva is dripping down on my chin! So I read first 100 pages at 5 hours. Can you believe it? You cannot! But it’s true! And I didn’t totally get anything. So I gave short breaks, popped up my fish oil tablets (I thought they could help my mind to function faster!)
I kept repeating myself, “This is the same author who wrote Six of Crows, right? Maybe I’m at the alternate universe and I read different version of book or too much Chardonnay finally turned me into regular brainless Hollywood person!”
So the intriguing blurb of Galaxy Stern a.k.a Alex who suffered from big traumas, abuse, too many horrible things finally makes a fresh start by starting to study in Yale. She meets with Darlington ( definitely not my darling!) who informs her about nine secret societies and their rituals. As the season turns into spring, we see that Alex still fights with her past demons and a girl’s murder triggers her traumatic experiences. She is so adamant to solve the case even though it means she has to face the ghosts of her old life.
So this seems like my kind of story I actually like. It’s dark! It’s wild! There is a big mystery! Magical rituals, mystery, a tormented but strong heroine!
BUT… My expectations are flying in the sky because I know this author has one of the most talented brains on the earth. But the story telling are so slow and those intelligent references seemed like too pretentious and made me confused and lost! I pushed myself too hard to finish like a job or a secret mission but reading shouldn’t be a torture or obligation. You read it because you love the books and you love how they make you feel. But this book didn’t make me relaxed, happy, entertained, excited, it just suffocated me.
I couldn’t relate with Alex, Darlington and I tried my best but I didn’t like Sandow, Hellie, Dawlos, too.
So maybe I decided to read this in a wrong time. Maybe I had a focusing problem or I’m in a dark mood when winter comes or I didn’t feel like to read something like that! But unfortunately this is not my cup of tea (I hate by the way! Let’s say not cup of my almond milk latte!)
You may expel me to the minority city and punish me to have a few days without my kindle or boo me for my review but these are my thoughts. This book didn’t work for me!
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Rating: really liked it
TOTO, WE’RE NOT IN YA FANTASY ANYMORE.
Can you believe that of all the eras we could have been born in, we are all blessed to live in the one in which Leigh Bardugo is publishing books?!
I have often felt like Leigh is able to sneak into my brain and write exactly what I need. (I am calling her by her first name because if she is, in fact, a presence inside my mind then it’s a given that we’d be on that level of familiarity.)
For example: I love heists and ragtag groups of friends and slow burn romance and did I mention I love heists.
Boom. Six of Crows.
I love fairytales and beautiful illustrations and even beautiful-er writing.
Boom. Language of Thorns.
And I love fantasy stories and darkness and twists and magic and New England, but I’ve been feeling dismal about young adult books lately, like maybe I’ve grown out of them.
Boom. This book.
I am one happy camper.
This took me a whileeee to get into. I’m talking 100 to 200 pages, even. But once I was in, I WAS IN. I could not put it down and also I wanted to climb inside the pages and live there and give Alex a kiss on the face and also do her homework for her because oh my god she was not doing it and it stressed me out.
This rivals the later Harry Potter books for repeated mentions of homework that the main characters simply are not doing.
I love Alex and her thorniness and her fierceness. I love Dawes and her loyalty and her secret goofiness and her sweaters. I love Yale and its secrets and its grounds and its impenetrability.
I love Darlington because obviously.
(view spoiler)
[I had a feeling Bardugo didn’t REALLY kill Darlington...he’s just too good of a character. I knew she would’ve had an affection for him. I guess you don’t kill your darling(ton)s after all…and yes, it’s official, I am the funniest person alive. (hide spoiler)]I even love teeny-tiny characters who shouldn’t have enough characterization but in fact do and are fantastic (Lauren, Mercy, even Tripp and Hellie and people with like single lines of dialogue).
God damn it I need the next book NOW. Leigh, if I didn’t have all the respect in the world for you, I would scream because you are writing 82 books and 300 TV and film adaptations and I just want you to let me back into this world right now, please and thank you.
Honestly...I am profoundly impressed by the fact that this book felt N O T H I N G like anything else I’ve read by Leigh Bardugo. She is just such a good writer.
Also, speaking of the fact that this is very un-Bardugo.
This IS NOT a young adult book. In young adult books, things can be relatively happy-happy-joy-joy. General fiction has no such obligation.
There is a lot of violence and gore and intense imagery in this story. It is not a comfy read. You can say that this is not your cup of tea for those reasons, and you are well within your rights to say so.
But it’s not fair to say this is a *bad book* because it has those things.
There is not a cap on the upsetting content that a story can contain before it’s gone overboard. A book is not bad because it dares to address multiple difficult topics.
This is a book where awful and disturbing things happen, yes, but it isn’t a book where awful and disturbing things happen for no reason. They don’t happen in a vacuum without cause or results. The characters are affected by them.
It handles multiple tough topics with care and with sensitivity. It is a well written and well handled book. Trying to “cancel” it because it does so is equivalent to banning books.
Anyway. Censorship rant over.
Back to the important stuff.
GIVE ME THE SEQUEL.
I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO INVESTED IN THE PLOTLINE OF A BOOK THAT HASN’T COME OUT YET.
I WEEP.
Bottom line: Leigh Bardugo help me.
Also I might need to change this to five stars.
Update from reread: Not five stars. Good stuff, though.-----------
currently-rereading updatesmy internal monologue: darlingtondarlingtondarlingtondarlingtondarlingtondarlingtondarlingtondarlingtondarlingtondarlington
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the only surprising thing about me rereading this is that it took this long
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pre-reviewQUEEN LEIGH HAS DONE IT AGAIN.
review to come / 4.5 stars might change to 5 WHO KNOWS
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currently reading updates(don't mind me, just arbitrarily decided in the middle of the day six months after i last read this that it deserves five stars.)
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IT'S HAPPENING.
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tbr reviewgoing to need my copy of this to hurry up and GET HERE thx
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to give you an idea of how much i'm anticipating this:
i've only preordered 2 books in my life.
this is one of them.
Rating: really liked it
CONGRATULATIONS-Goodreads Choice Awards Adult Fantasy Winner!"I am a daughter of Lethe, and the wolves are at the door."Hello friends, and good evening. Do me a favor will you? Could you all please stand up? Thank you. Now, if you're a fan of dark fantasy/horror and stories involving occult magic, please remain standing; everyone else can sit down. Remain standing if you also retain the ability to push through a read that has a slew of triggers, such as sexual assault, graphic rape of a 12 year old girl, murder, gore, death, drug abuse/overdose, possession, the forced eating of excrement to a rapist, and many more subjects. Great, now also remain standing if you are ok with reading a book where you are dropped into the middle of a world much like our own, but you have no idea what's going on and have to figure it out as you go at a slow burning pace, until all is revealed. If you're still with me, follow me to the next portion; the rest of you may be excused.
Why the dramatics, Chels? Well, to be fair, this book won't be for everyone. I'll go as far as saying that it won't be for a majority of people.
Ninth House is an extremely dark and heavy read, one that is well-written and plotted, but contains many aspects that are so niche that I can't imagine a majority of Bardugo's YA fantasy fans crossing over into this realm. Many of my close, trusted friends have struggled with this book, and I highly respect their opinions and reasons for not resonating with it, and if you're looking for a wonderful, objective 3 star review to offset mine, I suggest you read Melanie's HERE.
If you're still with me, I'd like to take a moment and break down, into sections, just what ground the book covers. There will be no major spoilers, but if you want to go in blind without any sense of what the book is about, stop here. "That was what magic did. It revealed the heart of who you'd been before life took away your belief in the possible. It gave back the world all lonely children longed for. That was what Lethe had done for him. Maybe it could do that for Alex as well."The book opens with a touch of an ending, and abruptly brings us back to what I will refer to as Present Day. We are dropped directly into Alex's daily schedule, and over the course of the first 150 pages or so, we slowly gather information on the various secret societies at Yale, how magic is involved, and snippets of Alex's past that lead her to Yale in the first place. This is the section where the book weeds out those who bought this because it's one of the most popular new releases of 2019, and those who are genuinely interested in dark ADULT fantasy. Once we get a general sense of this alternate contemporary world, we realize there are two mysteries at hand. One is the murder of a local and there appears to have been magic involved. Who killed her and for what purpose? This particular mystery does tie into the next mystery I'll be mentioning, but suffice it to say that this murder is solved and completely wrapped up in this first installment. The second mystery is the disappearance of Alex's mentor, Darlington. This mystery receives answers but will continue on into the sequel. Along the way, Alex teams up with a few human people and also Grays (spirits of the deceased that still roam the earth) to solve both mysteries, while also revealing the entirety of Alex's background and how she came to be at Yale.
I'll be honest, I had my doubts in the beginning. When I say that the pacing is slow, I mean it is S-L-O-W. The audio version of
Ninth House features two of my favorite narrators, and I found that this format worked best for me in the beginning, and I enjoyed it so much that I mostly listened to the entire book rather than reading my hard copy. Once the ball gets rolling, I became fully engrossed. I can't tell you how interesting it was to read about all of these real societies with the added flair of magical abilities. Bardugo created a world that felt eerily realistic; no detail is left untouched and she used the old Stephen King method of "make it real, but change the slightest detail to make it not real," and this worked beautifully.
After a majority of the book being the slow burn, the ending is absolute bonkers in the best way! Wild, action packed, and with a few twists I did not see coming! I felt the ending was brilliant; it wasn't a cliffhanger but it did leave me ready and wanting to come back for more. I'll stop before I ramble on, but I'd like to cautiously recommend this book with gusto. If you've read it, I'd love to chat with you about it. If you decide this isn't for you, I respect that, and I can't wait for the next book we get to chat about together.
Rating: really liked it
DNF - pg 146.
I actually cannot do it. I can't finish it. I wanted to like this book
so bad, and then I just wanted to finish it so bad, but it's sending me into a serious book slump. I'm giving up.
After struggling through the first 100 pages, I decided to take a break, read something else, and then come back to it. Sometimes it's the timing, you know? So I went and read a good portion of Isaacson's The Innovators, got myself neck-deep in some quantum computing, because after reading that, some magical Yale mystery has got to blow my socks off, right? But I only forced myself through another 46 pages before my eyes were glazing over and I started mentally screaming: holy shit! Please tell me again how transistors are made! Please!
I saw a couple of people say they were hoping Ninth House would be like The Magicians and were disappointed that it wasn't, but I gotta say: I found the first 146 pages of this book to be exactly like The Magicians. Unbelievable pretentiousness, almost constant highbrow intellectual references, nothing actually happening... If it was marketed somewhere that this book was like The Magicians, then I completely missed that.
I had been worried about all the promise of dark themes-- some of the trigger warnings sounded downright revolting --but I never expected Bardugo to write something so cold, aloof and boring. Normally when I don't finish a book, I ask people to spoil the ending for me, but I genuinely do not care what happens.
If you are new to Bardugo, I still recommend checking out the Six of Crows duology. Far more gripping than this.
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Rating: really liked it
"There were always excuses for why girls died."To answer your question: yes, it really is
that good.
Ninth House and I had a bit of a slow start. The new world that Bardugo has created might not be set in a fictional fantasy universe, but it features enough new concepts, characters, and settings that it takes some time to take it all in. Not only does every character have an alias and maybe even a nickname, so do the buildings at Yale. And since all my Yale knowledge is based on that cute little courtyard from Gilmore Girls, I struggled to figure out where and who and what was going on. As soon as I had grasped all of that, though, I was unable to resist the pull of this dark, compelling, murderous book.
I don't know where to start. The book was sombre and thrilling, brimming with ancient mysteries, magic, and the promise of danger. The characters were incredibly well-painted, my favourites being Turner and Dawes. The plot was thought-out, and until the very end, it was tense and exciting. My only criticism comes with the one or other reveal during the final showdown. Bardugo dropped enough clues here and there that the reader could have figured out who might have been behind the murder at the centre of this novel. That is until the plot is twisted yet again and delivers an explanation that adds new possibilities that no reader could have suspected. It was drawn up out of thin air and therefore not as genius as I had expected it to be.
Now, be warned. If this book is one thing, it's violent. There are some graphic scenes that show sexual abuse. There is trauma and pain and it's not glossed over. I've seen people get mad at Leigh because she chose to show these horrible acts of violence. They accused her of exploiting the pain for shock value. I cannot agree with them. The novel is deeply feminist and shows characters with a past that is tough, that made them survivors. Readers also have no right to know whether the scenes in the book are based on the author's personal experiences. She doesn't have to justify writing about sexual abuse by proving that she has been in a similar position. I do, however, agree that the book needs trigger warnings.
I honestly can't wait for the sequel. I mean, I personally don't care about [redacted] and whether they'll manage to save them or not, but the world that Bardugo created is so rich and leaves so much to discover that I wouldn't mind another three to five books. It feels like Alex Stern only just got started kicking ass.
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Rating: really liked it
mmm....not the best record with Bardugo but...everyone loves this one.
Fingers crossed.
Update 1 Everyone is telling me that the beginning is rough. I'm 1/3 of the way through.
Can the beginning be over yet???
#2 CAN WE GO LIKE TWO PAGES WITHOUT SOMEONE GETTING RAPED???
#3 OKAY YES, BUT DID WE HAVE TO TRANSITION TO POO?
The audiobook, a summary: 1-12 hours - Ugh ugh ugh.
12-13 - hmmmm... this is interesting
13-15 - holy. Mother. Effing. Crap. I can't. It's just. F*ck. I have to read book 2.
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Rating: really liked it
This was honestly….
really disappointing.I enjoyed the beginning, the world, the school setting and the magic seemed interesting but it went downhill fast.
Soon it was clear that Darlington was the only thing interesting and he wasn’t there for most of the book so… bleh.
Generous 2 star. So much potential but did not care for the story at all and frankly the last 3 hours of the audiobook could have simply not existed :/
Rating: really liked it
the power that that has, the intelligence that that has, the clearance that that has, the access that that has, the influence that that has, the profile that that has, the international implications that that has
Rating: really liked it
This book is just fabulous. It has excellent worldbuilding; deep, dark mystery; fascinating characters that you root for even when you don't like their choices; a twisty, original and unexpected plot that had me guessing all the way until the end. Highly, highly recommend.
Rating: really liked it
why couldn’t the whole book be like the last 100 pages??
Rating: really liked it
Review to come!
Rating: really liked it
4.5 loved
