Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

330 reviews

hippievamp's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Blood, Excrement, Grief, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Bullying, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Vomit

Minor: Addiction, Antisemitism, and Alcohol

there is an intense and extremely vivid description of attempted rape on a twelve year old.

ceruleanshelves's review against another edition

dark emotional funny informative mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.25

Mors irrumat omnia. Death fucks us all.

i INHALED this book, omg. this was a VAST change of pace from shadow & bone and i much preferred it. it was very reminiscent to vicious but more complicated with it's worldbuilding and lore and a stronger theme of sexism and corruption in academia and society.

“I let you die. To save myself, I let you die.
That is the danger in keeping company with survivors.”

i LOVE alex, she's a fighter, a survivor. she is grit and teeth and isn't afraid to bite. it was really cool to see sephardic jewish rep and seeing ladino used in magic. darlington is naively pretentious but unavoidably loveable. this is yet another case of i don't know who i want to be or be with more lol. let the bi panic ensue.

“All you children playing with fire, looking surprised when the house burns down”

i would say the first maybe 10-20% or so was slow for me. not bad but i didn't feel driven until a certain point was hit - and then it took off from there. bardugo's creativity in constructing the houses of lethe and crafting how certain magics fit in with them, intermingled with an undercurrent of demonology and other deathlore, and the weaving of race/class/gender politics within a town and society that is very much built for a specific demographic to come out on top was masterful. i also, despite the sometimes grim scenarios, found myself still huffing in a laugh at the dry humor that tended to come from alex.

“I want to survive this world that keeps trying to destroy me.”

i'm excited to jump into book 2 asap! 

Time to go to hell

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Sexism, Sexual assault, Blood, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Toxic relationship, Grief, and Classism

Minor: Cancer, Gun violence, Misogyny, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

callmeamelia's review against another edition

adventurous challenging fast-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug use, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Blood, and Murder

sarahschuster's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense

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

5.0

The writing style was a little difficult for me (long sentences with lots of metaphors and descriptive words, vocabulary and references that I had to look up). But the characters were interesting and the plot was so compelling and well fleshed out that I felt the book still deserved 5 stars. 

I had an inkling early on that Belbalm was evil and would be the big twist at the end of the book but I didn’t come close to predicting the truth.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Drug abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, and Toxic relationship

megansendlesstbr's review against another edition

3.5

I went into this book blind and I don’t know if it’s just the kindle version I had but there were no trigger warnings whatsoever and I really feel this book needs them! It was kinda jarring not having this context first. I didn’t really get invested until the last 20% of this - it was good, really rich world building etc. but there was just something lacking for me.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Sexism

kenziekat's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Murder

Minor: Physical abuse and Injury/Injury detail

lenz's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse and Gaslighting

Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Rape and Forced institutionalization

bookishfabledfiction's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective sad 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? It's complicated

4.5

This book is right up my alley. I really enjoyed it and would have given it 4.5/5 ⭐️ had it not been for the last chapter or so. I didn't (and still don't) quite understand

how Darlington had become a demon and, more importantly, how Alex had arrived at this conclusion.

It felt like Bardugo was trying maybe a bit too hard to leave an opening for a sequel (which has been published, of course). I believe I would've liked the story better had it ended without

Darlington surviving and becoming a demon (or something??).

That being said, I still plan on reading the next book in the series.
Otherwise, it's a really interesting story with a couple of mysteries, multi-faceted characters, and a solid magic system. I particularly like how Bardugo incorporated her fictional world within the real-life New Haven/Yale campus. She played off Yale's real-world secret societies quite well. Bardugo also made it difficult to predict the resolution.
Would recommend it to anyone interested in fantasy and mysteries.

Quotes:

He didn’t know how precious a normal life could be, how easy it was to drift away from average. You started sleeping until noon, skipped one class, one day of school, lost one job, then another, forgot the way that normal people did things. You lost the language of ordinary life. And then, without meaning to, you crossed into a country from which you couldn’t return. You lived in a state where the ground always seemed to be slipping from beneath your feet, with no way back to someplace solid.

Death words could be anything, really, as long as they spoke of the things Grays feared most—the finality of passing, a life without legacy, the emptiness of the hereafter.

Peace was like any high. It couldn’t last. It was an illusion, something that could be interrupted in a moment and lost forever. Only two things kept you safe: money and power.

...harmless people high on nothing more than their own pretensions.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Rape

Minor: Addiction, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

notsohopelessromantic's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious 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

5.0

I absolutely loved the first book in this trilogy. The writing that Leigh Bardugo uses in Ninth House differs so much, I feel like, from the works of the Grishaverse. This instantly captivated me and I was waiting and waiting for there to be resolution. There was some, but not everything was fixed by the end, so I am very eager to read Hell Bent.

I love Alex, and Dawes, but am craving more Darlington. The world built is truly corrupt, dark, and magical. Not unlike real life, but different enough that it has the ability to transport you into a world you'd be interested in living in. The end did throw me a bit, in a good way, with that twist. I still feel quite bad for poor North, but perhaps he'll feel a bit better in the next one.

There are uncomfortable instances throughout the book that maybe should have been prefaced with a page dedicated to trigger warnings. That is my only complaint; but seeing as I am able to push through those parts quite well, it didn't bother me in a way that would detract from the rest of the book, or my rating.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Vomit, and Medical content

jhuang's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

Phenomenal, thought provoking, and relevant

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Blood, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail