Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

26 reviews

taysa_gzd's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

Ackingly underwhelming, terrible pacing. The first half of the book was really hard to get through, but then, it became an addictive read, only to be let down by the post twist by the end.

As it aims to be the first book of a series, I think it does a good job at laying down the setting for a hopefully better sequel, because I do see a lot of potential for this series, I just don't want to be let down again.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Violence, Child abuse, Death, and Animal death

Moderate: Rape, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

lisaam's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Medical content, Murder, and Physical abuse

aseel_reads's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

2023: even on reread, I still love this book. The plot is very cool and I am obsessed with the world. 

2019: Genius, Bardugo is an absolute genuis. This plot was so brilliant, just like the whole concept was amazing, I love this book so much

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual violence, Alcoholism, Blood, Addiction, Drug use, Sexual assault, Animal death, Murder, and Violence

collyofthewobbles's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I am used to read Leigh Bardugos YA, so this is a switch being her first Adult Fantasy book.
This is A LOT darker than i thought it would be. But not surprising really. 
I found it hard to keep hold of what was going on. Although I liked Alex, and i was intrqued by her past and what makes her tick.
I found the constant time jumping very difficult to follow. And the constant world building hard to grasp.
The plot would just be getting going, and then you switch to something else. Constantly adding more layers, so that it would ditract you from the original plot. 
I like the premis of this book but it felt too much. The mytholodgy was sound, but there was so much of it, the charecters and story got lost.
There were about 3 ending in this book. Personally i could have had less building and more charecter. 
I can see what the Author was going for, I think maybe I wasn't the right reader for it.
It's not a bad book, just complicatedAnd many trigger warnings.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Drug abuse, and Child abuse

Moderate: Bullying, Self harm, Emotional abuse, Animal death, and Violence

bi_n_large's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

CW: child sexual abuse, rape, violence

I was worried about this book because of the content warnings (or rather, and more importantly, the lack thereof.)

As awful as some of the scenes are to read (the on-the-page child rape is especially nauseating), they all serve the story of survivor Galaxy “Alex” Stern.

Bardugo writes Alex with compassion and honesty, presenting Alex’s prickly personality without judging her for it.

Alex’s POV was so satisfying to follow, much more so than her companion Darlington’s.

(My dislike of Darlington has more to do with preference than anything else. Darlington acts as the novel’s Gansey and I could have done without him.)

The story is creepy and offers twists on twists on twists with interesting commentary on privilege, rape culture, and trauma. Just when I thought the book was done, it hit me with ANOTHER twist.

At least the novel wraps up its main mystery before ending with a sequel hook.

Overall, this is a solid horror-fantasy novel with characters I wouldn’t mind reading about in the future.

(Minor spoiler: I don’t know if there’s an Alex Stern/Abel Turner ship happening, but I HOPE SO.)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Sexual violence, Violence, Drug use, Drug abuse, Death, Murder, Blood, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Animal death, Bullying, and Misogyny

Minor: Racism

emberysing's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Cursing, Death, Violence, Drug use, and Drug abuse

Moderate: Gore, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Toxic relationship