Reviews - Hell Bent | The StoryGraph

19.2k reviews for:

Hell Bent

Leigh Bardugo

4.14 AVERAGE

jamirama's review against another edition

3.25

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

columnclub's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous dark mysterious

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Another banger. Really enjoyed this one – it was great to see how the characters and their relationships have developed since Ninth House.

hkim95's review against another edition

3.0

3.5 I will always love Leigh Barbugo’s writing and her characters. All of her books reads like a movie to me, especially this book.

The plot did seem to drag out in the beginning to the middle. And about halfway to like the last 4 chapter, it seemed to pick up the pace, but ending felt a bit rushed at the end. Like, there was so much going on and so much unsolved mystery at the end that I felt wasn’t too important? And the way they just dumped all the bodies together in the basement felt a little anticlimactic. Oh and I really thought the return of Darlington and his reunion with the rest of the team (esp. Dawes) would be more impactful but it felt flat. I still don’t understand why Dawes loves Darlington so much to go to hell for him? I love Dawes but I felt like we need more of Dawe’s backstory.

Also, I do love Barbugo’s writing style and definitely will read the next book, It felt a bit…YA? with adult content. Like doing magic is great but I kept picturing like pokemon battles when they were fighting with their guardian animals (+ tree) lol towards the end. And don’t even bring up the glowstick.

I did like how Anslem was introduced and I thought he was really charming and was interested to see how he adds to the team until I got to the part where he became Darlington 2.0 (evil version). I thought Mercy would become more of a solid character in this book, but she and Tripp didn’t really add much either.

booktarot_reads's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

fantasy_writer_221b's review against another edition

3.5

slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

I’m going to be honest here and say that it did take me something like two years to finish this book. Mainly because I took about a year or so gap in the middle of the book for some reason. Therefore, please take my review with the pinch of salt it deserves: I did enjoy this book. I adore dark academia and Dawes and Turner are absolutely amazing. Maybe the plot was less engaging than Ninth House, maybe that’s why it took me so long to finish, but the prose and writing was phenomenal, as is always the case with Leigh Bardugo.

karenbookshelf's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective tense 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

One thing I can definitely always say about Leigh Bardugo's books is that they always deliver on every single front that was promised.

I had so much fun reading this book, even if it took a while to finish it, but between moving, I was looking forward to read Hell Bent, even if it was just for one chapter.

Other than that I hate that we have to wait I don't know how long before getting the next book in the series because what the hell was that cliffhanger??