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A review by katmindae
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
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
4.25
Going to sleep on it because I loooved reading this but I have gripes
- I almost gave up on the intro because I could not get my bearings for maybe 50-100 pages. Seeing that in a lot of reviews now I kind of hate the time jumping but I also kind of love it.. but it was too much at the beginning for a first book in the series. I went back to the first chapter once the timeline caught up and only then did it make sense. Definitely need more time to slowly give introductions when I think a character like Alex (like Harry Potter or a similar “omg what there’s this whole hidden world character) should be such an easy vehicle for excusable exposition - I liked the chapter breaks of the Lethe book but I didn’t even understand what Lethe was until chapter 3. The atmosphere was there but also with the writing style being atmospheric I couldn’t figure out what was real or a metaphor for a long time. I thought the first chapter was an apocalypse situation.
- idk I haven’t seen in other reviews but it felt kind of 2015 feminism to me IDK !!!!! loved parts of the callouts to frat and rape culture but some of it felt heavy handed and tripe. Last sequence especially had me disappointedbecause why have Daisy be the Big Bad when the greedy old white man was right there!!! I get the callout to white feminism but idk felt way more like a book 2 kind of theme.
- last 50? (Ebook so not sure) pages and the final climax left me super disappointed. One too many twists. Wrong Big Bad.
Still can’t wait to get a library card so I can devour hellbent tho
- I almost gave up on the intro because I could not get my bearings for maybe 50-100 pages. Seeing that in a lot of reviews now I kind of hate the time jumping but I also kind of love it.. but it was too much at the beginning for a first book in the series. I went back to the first chapter once the timeline caught up and only then did it make sense. Definitely need more time to slowly give introductions when I think a character like Alex (like Harry Potter or a similar “omg what there’s this whole hidden world character) should be such an easy vehicle for excusable exposition - I liked the chapter breaks of the Lethe book but I didn’t even understand what Lethe was until chapter 3. The atmosphere was there but also with the writing style being atmospheric I couldn’t figure out what was real or a metaphor for a long time. I thought the first chapter was an apocalypse situation.
- idk I haven’t seen in other reviews but it felt kind of 2015 feminism to me IDK !!!!! loved parts of the callouts to frat and rape culture but some of it felt heavy handed and tripe. Last sequence especially had me disappointed
- last 50? (Ebook so not sure) pages and the final climax left me super disappointed. One too many twists. Wrong Big Bad.
Still can’t wait to get a library card so I can devour hellbent tho
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Child abuse, Vomit, Sexual assault, Physical abuse, Rape, and Violence