Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo- My Review
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo- My Review
Introduction:
I spent the last few months in a haze of Dark Academia obsession. This week’s book review is of one of the best books I’ve read in ages, and definitely one of my favourite Dark Academia novels that I’ve ever read. This for me surpassed Babel, If We Were Villains, and The Secret History. Anyhow, that’s enough gushing from me, let’s get down to business.
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
Synopsis
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Leigh Bardugo comes a mesmerizing tale of power, privilege, and dark magic set among the Ivy League elite.
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.
Ninth House is the long-awaited adult debut by the beloved author of Shadow and Bone and Six of Crows. Leigh Bardugo will take her place alongside Lev Grossman and Deborah Harkness as one of the finest practitioners of literary fantasy writing today.
My Review
Rating: ★★★★★
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo follows Galaxy, or ‘Alex’, Stern as she begins her first winter term at Yale. We learn quickly that Yale is not only the prestigious Ivy League university we’ve come to know, but also home to nine secret societies that practice magic via weekly rituals. Lethe, the society that Alex has been drafted into because she can innately see Greys, aka the dead, is responsible for enforcing magical law and making sure rituals are conducted correctly, as well as protecting the societies from Greys which seem to cluster around the Society tombs when the veil is thinned by magic being conducted.
Within the first chapter of the novel, a murder victim has been found on Yale property, and Alex is drawn into a series of events that inevitably lead to exposing the major players at Lethe as being not at all what they seem. Then there’s Darlington, Alex’s mentor- also known as the Virgil to Alex’s Dante. Darlington has gone missing, and it was this storyline I found most intriguing of all.
I loved the character of Alex for this story mainly because she was so un-yale. She doesn’t come from money, she isn’t super academic, or nerdy. In fact, she’s an ex-drug-addict who spent years addicted to banned substances after being harassed and assaulted by the greys she can’t seem to get rid of.
After discovering she can see the dead, Lethe recruits her, but she’s in no way heading for Yale before this. It’s her chance to start over after her friends and boyfriend ended up mysteriously murdered back in LA, her chance to stop worrying her mother Mira and to give herself a better life. She sees right through the bureaucracy and systems that are designed to enhance the rich while leaving the poor to suffer within the societies, and I loved that she wouldn’t give up trying to solve Tara’s murder and to get Darlington back, even after everyone else had given up trying. I thought the magical system created by Bardugo in this was also incredible and enjoyed the way that the magic in this world feeds in almost entirely to theories of the uncanny I studied at university.
I was underwhelmed by the romance in this novel, but honestly the plot and all the action really made up for this. You also have the main character, Alex, who has serious rape trauma in her past, so I feel like doing the romance in a slower, more subtle way was definitely in keeping with this kind of character.
My favourite storyline for this novel was Darlington’s and it was this character arc and the mystery surrounding his disappearance which led me to pick up the sequel immediately- this launched as of January 10th, 2023.
I also thought the way that North’s story fed into the overarching plot within the societies of Yale was extremely well-done, and I was kept guessing about who was responsible for the events back in the 1850’s until the very last chapters of the book. As we speak, I am currently about 40% into Hell Bent- book 2 in the series, and I can confirm that this book keeps hold of you exactly the way book 1 does and refuses to let go. Stay tuned for my review next week!
To conclude, read this book! It really captured my imagination and left me reeling when it was over, so much so that I actually paid full price of £12 for the e-book of book 2 the week of release which usually I avoid doing. This book was worth it though, and I can already tell the sequel will give me plenty to talk about in my next blog post.
Aesthetic Gallery
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