Book Review: "Ninth House" by Leigh Bardugo
“Ninth House” by Leigh Bardugo
Synopsis: Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug-dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. In fact, by age twenty, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most prestigious universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?
Still searching for answers, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. Their eight windowless “tombs” are the well-known haunts of the rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street’s biggest players. But their occult activities are more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive. They tamper with forbidden magic. They raise the dead. And, sometimes, they prey on the living. - Flatiron Books
Rating (out of 5): 4.5
Trigger warnings: Wow, we have a lot here — violence, rape and sexual assault , murder, gore, drug addiction, overdosing, death, suicide, blackmail, self-harm, and forced consumption of human waste. STILL AN AMAZING BOOK - JUST A DARK AND GORY ONE.
Review: Alex Stern is a high school dropout, a drug addict, and sometime stripper. She has nothing left to lose, and she is selfless in her recklessness. All of her heroics are centered in her relationships — she goes above and beyond to help those that she loves, even if she doesn’t give herself the same regard. She’s a complicated and dark protagonist, but as she says herself: she’s only looking for the peace she’s never known. You see, she can see ghosts (or “grays”) everywhere she goes — never getting a break, not knowing how to explain it to those around her. After one of the worst days of her life, she’s given an offer no one would turn down: a free ride to Yale, if only she’ll be the Dante of Lethe.
I know, I know — when the book opened with that phrase, I was like, WTF Leigh Bardugo. So just to give you a little primer. Yale is full of ancient magic , all different kinds, and this magic is intimately intwined with the mysterious secret societies that have a place on campus. Lethe was established to monitor their rituals, which range from prognostication over stock market futures to opening portals to creating compelling glamours. You’re thrown right into the action, and it admittedly took me about 40 pages to get in the groove with the language and the plot. We’re told the story of Alex’s freshman year in non-chronological order, though we do get a complete picture of it by the conclusion of the novel.
The event at the nexus of the book is the murder of Tara, a girl who, at first glance, looks a lot like Alex - a “loser” small-time drug dealer. As she digs deeper into the circumstances around her death, she and her team (Dawes, the oculus; Turner, the cop; Mercy, the roommate; Sandow the dean) end up in a deep web of figuring out who is trying to resurrect some seriously evil magic. On top of all that, her mentor and friend, Darlington, has…stepped out unexpectedly; personally, I really enjoyed Darlington’s story and I cannot wait to see where that ends up.
If you follow us on Instagram, you know that I was pumped about this book, and I made sure to have the time available to read it this week. I love anything about magic, and due to a crush on Joshua Jackson in The Skulls when I was a middle schooler, am fascinated with Yale’s secret societies. What I didn’t expect how subversively funny this book would be or how unabashedly feminist. Woven among stories of glumas and hell mouths is some powerful commentary about how power is more important than anything and how powerful men seem to get away with everything:
“But if this is the real world, the normal world, did she really want in? Nothing ever changed. The bad guys never suffered.…They took what they wanted. The world might forgive them or ignore them or embrace them, but it never punished them.”
Even if you aren’t a fan of fantasy or books about magic (yes, I guess we can still be friends), I think you’d like this book — it works so well because it’s about real people. None of our characters are perfect — they are human beings with real flaws — and the setting is one that is recognizable to most, thanks to pop culture. Plus, it does make sense that some of the “notable alumni” rose to such prominence thanks to the use of magic. Kidding on that one. Mostly.
TL;DR: A dark and gory tale about some seriously dark magic, taking place at Yale amongst the secret societies, featuring some seriously amazing women.
If you liked this, try these:
“Children of Shadow and Bone” by Leigh Bardugo (Shannon’s review here!)
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