Ninth House
By: Leigh Bardugo
Published Year: 2019
Publisher: Flatiron
Pages: 459
Summary (Provided by Goodreads): 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. By age twenty, in fact, 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 elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?
Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.
First Impressions
This was one of the most hyped books of 2019. I had hear a lot about Bardugo in regards to her previous novels, Smoke and Bone and Six of Crows, but I had read neither series. Both of those were YA novels and this was going to be her first Adult novel. It definitely caught my eye because of the hype and the summary about secret societies at Yale got to me too. I don’t know if I would’ve picked it up base on the cover alone. I probably would have since it is a bit creepy, but maybe only around Halloween.
What I thought
Oh… my… wow. This book was great.
Alex is drafted by a secret society at Yale after she is found almost dead at a murder scene in LA. The Lethe house is meant to keep an eye on the other 8 houses while they perform their rituals and use magic. But what makes Alex special is that she is able to see ghosts, or Greys, without any need for a potion or magic. During her first semester at Yale while studying the rules of the societies, her mentor Darlington disappears and there is a murder that occurs, leaving Alex to try to solve both mysteries in a world completely new to her.
I often get nervous about books that have this much hype surrounding them. There’s no way that they can live up to it! Ninth House also received the reward for Goodreads Choice Adult Fantasy 2019. I was a little wary because I didn’t know whether Bardugo’s fan base was to be trusted, but this book blew my expectations out of the water.
I don’t know if you have noticed through reading my blog, but I have been in a bit of a reading slump. I haven’t had many books lately that make me really want to read over watching TV and when I do read, I’m disappointed by the time I finish. This is the first book in a long time that I found myself wanting to pick up every spare minute I had to read more. If I had 5 extra minutes, I was slipping in a few pages.
The beginning is a bit slow and confusing. You get dropped right into the end of the story and then it moves backwards for a little bit, so it took me a little while to get oriented. Once I gained my footing in the world, I was hooked. This book is such a perfect combination of murder mystery and fantasy. I’m not a huge fantasy fan, but I loved this one because it’s just enough magic to make the real world fanstastical, but it seems like it could actually be happening. It’s not a completely new world, just a twist on the one you know.
The characters were so well written as well. I connected with each of them and I am so excited that this book has a sequel. I want more Alex. I want more Darlington. I want more Dawes. Like I said, I haven’t felt this way about a book in a while, so it’s almost hard for me to review a book I liked this much as I’m out of practice. I will warn that it is a darker novel and has some very graphic moments. It is not for the faint of heart but it’s not done in a tasteless way.
Reading this book was like eating a good home cooked meal after only eating fast food for a long time. I finally feel satiated but it has also reawakened my appetite for reading. If you enjoy murder mysteries and also like fantasy, this book will be perfect for you. Even if you’re not 100% sure how you feel about fantasy, I would still recommend giving this one a try. It will be like dipping your toe into the world of fantasy, because it’s mostly just magic and the paranormal. There aren’t different worlds with an entirely new vocabulary you have to learn, just a few bits here and there. I cannot wait for the next book to come out and you can bet that I will definitely be going back to check out Bardugo’s YA novels.