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A review by keresian
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-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? No
4.0
Alex Stern is a first year at yale. Alex Stern is an impoverished kid from LA. Alex Stern is Dante, a trainee of Lethe House. Alex Stern is... a little bit annoying if I'm honest.
Ninth House follows Galaxy "Alex" Stern as she adapts to her new life - the Dante of Lethe House, the society in charge of preventing the other big societies of Yale from hurting or killing people. These societies can work true magic - from divination to contract bindings, necromancy to compulsion. These societies - known as the eight houses - are for the rich and talented, and have a tendency to crush the little people to get their way, which is why Lethe exists. Unfortunately for all nine houses, Alex isn't the typical inductee.
Unfortunately for Alex, her mentor - Daniel "Darlington" Arlington - has disappeared, and Alex, along with two of the three other Lethe House members, are trying to find him. This is only one of the plot threads through this book, that makes for an extremely confusing read. We also have a murder that Alex suspects is linked to one of the other houses, some murder attempts, a recurring ghost that wants <i>his</i> whole sitch resolved, a bunch of past scenes that seem to have yet another unsolved mystery (a set of murders this time), and then a whole thing with Alex's roommates. All of these plots tie in together fairly neatly, but this happens in the last 60-or-so pages of the book, which means you have about 390 pages worth of disjointed plots and constantly jumping focuses to get through.
I think that was the hardest bit about this book. Alex's focus changed constantly across all of these things in her life, sometimes there was a past chapter from when Darlington was still training her, sometimes there was a past flash of Alex pre-yale and what happened to her, and it all seemed to bounce around too quickly for me to follow well. I love mysteries, and I love trying to solve things before the book reveals them, but this felt like the author had too many ideas and wanted to get them all into a single "stand alone" book that is actually the first book of a series.
Some of what happened also felt unnecessary, to be honest? I didn't need to know about Alex's CSA experience, I didn't really need to know about how her first boyfriend screwed her, I really, really didn't need the unecessarily graphic depictions of someone digging around in another living human's abdominal cavity (which had zero relation to the plot other than shock value, really).
Then, out of nowhere, right at the end the rules change, and things that weren't mentioned at all suddenly exist to answer at least one question and set up the next book. It didn't feel like there was a lot of cohesion in this, most of the time?
HOWEVER, I love the author's writing style, I love the way her prose flows. I adored the worldbuilding of this - a house that recognises its owners? Portal magic? The Greys? The way magic ebbs and flows through the entirety of New Haven and the way Alex gets caught up in it along with all of the societies? I loved that! Dawes was an actual sweetheart and I'd die for her, I really want to see more of Darlington, and please, can I have the spirit hounds as pets? There is so much in this book to love, but I think a lot of it got bogged down and drowned out by the <i>too much</i> of everything else.
This is somewhere between a 3.75 and a 4.25 but I'm not entirely sure where, so it'll stay as a 4*
Ninth House follows Galaxy "Alex" Stern as she adapts to her new life - the Dante of Lethe House, the society in charge of preventing the other big societies of Yale from hurting or killing people. These societies can work true magic - from divination to contract bindings, necromancy to compulsion. These societies - known as the eight houses - are for the rich and talented, and have a tendency to crush the little people to get their way, which is why Lethe exists. Unfortunately for all nine houses, Alex isn't the typical inductee.
Unfortunately for Alex, her mentor - Daniel "Darlington" Arlington - has disappeared, and Alex, along with two of the three other Lethe House members, are trying to find him. This is only one of the plot threads through this book, that makes for an extremely confusing read. We also have a murder that Alex suspects is linked to one of the other houses, some murder attempts, a recurring ghost that wants <i>his</i> whole sitch resolved, a bunch of past scenes that seem to have yet another unsolved mystery (a set of murders this time), and then a whole thing with Alex's roommates. All of these plots tie in together fairly neatly, but this happens in the last 60-or-so pages of the book, which means you have about 390 pages worth of disjointed plots and constantly jumping focuses to get through.
I think that was the hardest bit about this book. Alex's focus changed constantly across all of these things in her life, sometimes there was a past chapter from when Darlington was still training her, sometimes there was a past flash of Alex pre-yale and what happened to her, and it all seemed to bounce around too quickly for me to follow well. I love mysteries, and I love trying to solve things before the book reveals them, but this felt like the author had too many ideas and wanted to get them all into a single "stand alone" book that is actually the first book of a series.
Some of what happened also felt unnecessary, to be honest? I didn't need to know about Alex's CSA experience, I didn't really need to know about how her first boyfriend screwed her, I really, really didn't need the unecessarily graphic depictions of someone digging around in another living human's abdominal cavity (which had zero relation to the plot other than shock value, really).
Then, out of nowhere, right at the end the rules change, and things that weren't mentioned at all suddenly exist to answer at least one question and set up the next book. It didn't feel like there was a lot of cohesion in this, most of the time?
HOWEVER, I love the author's writing style, I love the way her prose flows. I adored the worldbuilding of this - a house that recognises its owners? Portal magic? The Greys? The way magic ebbs and flows through the entirety of New Haven and the way Alex gets caught up in it along with all of the societies? I loved that! Dawes was an actual sweetheart and I'd die for her, I really want to see more of Darlington, and please, can I have the spirit hounds as pets? There is so much in this book to love, but I think a lot of it got bogged down and drowned out by the <i>too much</i> of everything else.
This is somewhere between a 3.75 and a 4.25 but I'm not entirely sure where, so it'll stay as a 4*
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Medical trauma, Drug use, Murder, Excrement, Sexual assault, Drug abuse, Death, Classism, and Body horror
Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Death, Gaslighting, and Rape
Minor: Gaslighting and Vomit