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hooliaquoolia 's review for:
Ninth House
by Leigh Bardugo
RE-READ: So part of my first criticism when I initially read this book is partially answered by a re-read. I still want to see more confrontation of use of non-European systems of magic used by white people, but maybe that'll be in the sequel. Overall I still give it four stars.
A feminist urban grimdark fantasy dark academia murder mystery? Inject it straight into my femoral, please. Intricate but perfectly wound--I would almost put this as a contemporary spiritual sister of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell for its depiction of society through magic.
Two reasons it's not getting five stars:
[- it's mentioned early on that magic was imported to the New World during the age of colonization, but it's also mentioned that there is a Chinese and African tradition of magic, so it is not product of European culture. To me, this felt like another manifestation of the idea that the Americas were some sort of virginal, untouched Eden before Columbus showed up--despite the fact that humans had living there for literally millennia. If magic is a part of human societies across the world, why was it new to the Americas? Were American Indians just sitting around, decidedly un-magical, somehow not doing what other humans across the entire globe were doing despite the fact that indigenous societies were incredibly diverse across this gigantic land mass? Or, the more likely, and more unfortunate option, did the author just not consider the fact of pre-Columbian societies in the Americas when constructing her magical world? Felt like a little bit of an oversight that I wish the editors had caught.
- there's also little discussion of the fact that a lot of these Houses of the Veil, which are majority white just like Yale itself, base their magic off traditions of non-white societies--Egyptian and Chinese, just to name two displayed examples. Somehow it felt weird to be reading a book in 2021 where a white guy is dressing up as a Chinese deity without any sort of confrontation of that, especially when the book does explicitly mention race and gender later on (and in an awesome way too!) (hide spoiler)]
So while I had two minor reservations, I'm still mad at myself for not reading this sooner, still absolutely devoured it, and can't wait for the sequel (coming this year! exciting!)!
A feminist urban grimdark fantasy dark academia murder mystery? Inject it straight into my femoral, please. Intricate but perfectly wound--I would almost put this as a contemporary spiritual sister of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell for its depiction of society through magic.
Two reasons it's not getting five stars:
[- it's mentioned early on that magic was imported to the New World during the age of colonization, but it's also mentioned that there is a Chinese and African tradition of magic, so it is not product of European culture. To me, this felt like another manifestation of the idea that the Americas were some sort of virginal, untouched Eden before Columbus showed up--despite the fact that humans had living there for literally millennia. If magic is a part of human societies across the world, why was it new to the Americas? Were American Indians just sitting around, decidedly un-magical, somehow not doing what other humans across the entire globe were doing despite the fact that indigenous societies were incredibly diverse across this gigantic land mass? Or, the more likely, and more unfortunate option, did the author just not consider the fact of pre-Columbian societies in the Americas when constructing her magical world? Felt like a little bit of an oversight that I wish the editors had caught.
- there's also little discussion of the fact that a lot of these Houses of the Veil, which are majority white just like Yale itself, base their magic off traditions of non-white societies--Egyptian and Chinese, just to name two displayed examples. Somehow it felt weird to be reading a book in 2021 where a white guy is dressing up as a Chinese deity without any sort of confrontation of that, especially when the book does explicitly mention race and gender later on (and in an awesome way too!) (hide spoiler)]
So while I had two minor reservations, I'm still mad at myself for not reading this sooner, still absolutely devoured it, and can't wait for the sequel (coming this year! exciting!)!