Reviews with content warning for Physical abuse - Das neunte Haus

Ninth house is another beautiful entry in Leigh Bardugo’s fantasy catalog. With an emphasis on secret societies, magic and more paranormal/supernatural entities, this novel showcased a new side of dark academia that benefits from its elaborate world-building and writing.

Note: This novel is SLOW at the beginning, but like a thriller would do, the world-building unravels with each page turned and read. Alternating timelines introduces new characters that are beloved at the start and grey characters that seem to unravel as the novel unfolds bringing more mystery to the already mysterious storyline. Ninth house has a bit of everything, including a murder mystery that grounds the novel even more alongside its location in Yale University.

Overall, I singlehandly devoured the first two books in this trilogy. It was the perfect blend of genre that enjoy reading and couldn’t ask for a better author to write it.

Also, this story has many content warnings but on the top of my head, SA is very present in this novel and among other things that are in the same realm so please try and find a full list of these warnings on social media sites so that you understand exactly what you are getting into before reading.

Content Warnings

nitas_reading_list's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

maddiereadswords's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

Let's get this out of the way first: I picked this book up because it was recommended by someone who LOVES it, and if I hadn't wanted to give this a fair shot for them, I would have dropped this book by 200 pages in and never looked back.

My biggest problem with it is that you can just tell this is the first adult novel by a YA author, and I don't say that to disparage YA at all!! It just feels like Leigh Bardugo wanted so badly for this to be an Adult Novel with Adult Themes, but rather than actually writing a story that engages on an adult level with complex themes, she just decided to throw in a bunch of drug use, body horror/gore, and graphic sexual assault to remind you that her characters are Adults in College. (Check the content warnings on this one if you need them!!) It was just way too much, and yet it did nothing? Like, Alex is a recovering drug addict, but at no point in time does that actually affect her as a character except to remind the reader of her fucked up backstory, even though she's constantly exposed to and using all kinds of magic drugs (and has no qualms about using them on others). Also, as an MC she's literally just so boring. All the characters kind of are tbh, and there's so much telling instead of showing about characters. We're told blatantly that Dawes likes taking care of people, like Bardugo doesn't trust the reader to put that together from context clues. We're told that Darlington's a gentleman, but he's really just a mediocre white guy with money (literally do not get me started on Darlington, he was such a nothing character to me and the fact that he's the fan favorite is disappointing, but not surprising.)

As for the plot, it's WAY too slow. I know even the people who love it say that it picks up like 100-150 pages in, but first of all, it should not take a third of the book for things to actually get moving. That's straight up just bad pacing. Also, the dual timelines were entirely too much. It took so long to catch up to the present, and the way the flashbacks were inter-spaced, it tended to disrupt any momentum in the actual story. Even when it did "pick up" it still felt like was crawling along at a snail's pace up until the very end. And speaking of the ending, it was SO unsatisfying. It was a mediocre resolution to a bad mystery because it wasn't like there was enough information thoughtfully woven into the story to encourage the reader to put together actual clues; it was all just withheld completely until the two (TWO!!) villain monologues at the very end which is just super frustrating.

Also let's be so fucking honest here: Leigh Bardugo thinks she's saying a lot about privilege, class, race, and gender at Yale, but she's not actually saying anything. This is a world where secret societies of privileged students use and abuse those they see as below them, but in this world, they're using magic to do it, so it's different. Also in this world, a woman is secretly behind it all, so actually the secret societies were never the problem, and we don't have to actually interrogate whether they should be allowed to continue to operate. It's such a nothing point, but it's said like she really thinks she's done something. Sure, Leigh, whatever you say.

This was such a disappointing read for me. I'm genuinely so glad that so many people love this book so much!! But it was definitely not for me. Literally the only thing that saved it from being a 1 star was that sometimes her prose was good when she wasn't beating me over the head with empty statements about characterization or waxing poetic about fucking New Haven. (I get it, you went to Yale! I do not care!!)

All of that being said, I am indeed still going to read the second book because the person who recommended it to me has insisted the second one is better, but I'm not optimistic it'll actually change my mind.

Content Warnings

uncreativeoops's review against another edition

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dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-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

4.75

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xiggy's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

2.5

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laurenmvmills's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

Content Warnings

libraryofcacw's review against another edition

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dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

3.75

"the chance to show someone else wonder, to watch them realise that they had not been lied to, that the world they'd been promised as children was not something that had to be abandoned, that there really is something lurking in the woods, beneath the stairs, between the stars, that everything was for of mystery."

it felt like reading two different books. so, very conflicted on how i feel about this book.
the start was very slow and alooooot of information dumping but by the end i had really started to connect with Alex and the plot.

also shout out to Pamula (Dawes) my wife 🥰💋

read via audiobook

Content Warnings

jelliestars's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

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