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A review by thesmutsister_emma
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
You Could Say They Were Hellbent to Figure This Out
3.75🌟/5 IF YOU ARE HERE For SA TWS FOR THIS BOOK OR LOOKING FOR WHICH CHAPTERS CONTAIN SA, THEY ARE AS FOLLOWS: Chapter 7, Chapter 14 and discussions through Chapters 14-16.
I'm going to be honest with y'all (as always). I only bought this book because I thought it was going to be a dark academia story similar to If We Were Villains or The Secret History. I went in blind (as I usually do with books) and was happily surprised. With that being said, I do have a few bones to pick. (see what I did there?)
The Characters
Alex Stern: Lord have mercy on this poor child's soul. Holy hell. I honestly feel like she was handed some bad fucking cards at some point or another. Everything this girl has gone through and then continues to go through? Shit, man. I honestly am proud of her for not giving up. I honestly loved Alex as a main character and felt like she went about things very well in this book. She has some negative self-talk throughout, but honestly, who wouldn't? She always ended up outsmarting everyone or at least not being too far behind and for a girl who has only known about all of this for about 6 months to 1 year, I'd say she's doing a damn good job.
Things I Loved
Honestly, all the characters were likable (at least the ones we were supposed to like.) I felt really drawn to Dawes, but that's just because deep deep down, all I want is for someone to have soup waiting for me at the end of every day. Honestly though, I liked the structure of the book. I enjoyed learning about the houses the same way Alex did and having that distinction between us still learning alongside Alex (somewhat) and us knowing the same amount as Alex and trying to solve this with her. It was great.
Things I Didn't Love
Here we go. This is where I am about to get passionate about things. This is also the reason my rating is so low. Leigh Bardugo is no new to the publishing industry. This is not Leigh Bardugo's first book. Therefore, I do feel as though there are some things she should have prefaced in this book, especially making the transition from YA to adult. The major thing I feel needs to be prefaced and discussed are the fucking trigger warnings. Or more simply put, the lack thereof. There are zero trigger warnings in this book despite a graphic scene of SA against a 12 year old girl, as well as another girl at a frat party. I somewhat understand the need for these situations, (I will discuss the need to frequently traumatize women at a later date) but there should have been some form of a warning considering how graphic they are. If one of Leigh's loyal readers went from any of her previous series straight to this one, this would be a rather rude awakening. I haven't even begun to talk about the graphicness of the violence in the book. Everything is very detailed, some of it unnecessarily so. This is why this book has such a low rating for me.
The Final Verdict
If you are going into this expecting anything like Leigh Bardugo's previous books, please don't. The content in this truly is created for adults and even unsettled me. If you have mentally prepared for this book and have looked into the content it holds, I truly believe you will thoroughly enjoy it. I would have enjoyed it much more if it weren't for the fact that I had to witness a very graphic SA without warning.
3.75🌟/5 IF YOU ARE HERE For SA TWS FOR THIS BOOK OR LOOKING FOR WHICH CHAPTERS CONTAIN SA, THEY ARE AS FOLLOWS: Chapter 7, Chapter 14 and discussions through Chapters 14-16.
I'm going to be honest with y'all (as always). I only bought this book because I thought it was going to be a dark academia story similar to If We Were Villains or The Secret History. I went in blind (as I usually do with books) and was happily surprised. With that being said, I do have a few bones to pick. (see what I did there?)
The Characters
Alex Stern: Lord have mercy on this poor child's soul. Holy hell. I honestly feel like she was handed some bad fucking cards at some point or another. Everything this girl has gone through and then continues to go through? Shit, man. I honestly am proud of her for not giving up. I honestly loved Alex as a main character and felt like she went about things very well in this book. She has some negative self-talk throughout, but honestly, who wouldn't? She always ended up outsmarting everyone or at least not being too far behind and for a girl who has only known about all of this for about 6 months to 1 year, I'd say she's doing a damn good job.
Things I Loved
Honestly, all the characters were likable (at least the ones we were supposed to like.) I felt really drawn to Dawes, but that's just because deep deep down, all I want is for someone to have soup waiting for me at the end of every day. Honestly though, I liked the structure of the book. I enjoyed learning about the houses the same way Alex did and having that distinction between us still learning alongside Alex (somewhat) and us knowing the same amount as Alex and trying to solve this with her. It was great.
Things I Didn't Love
Here we go. This is where I am about to get passionate about things. This is also the reason my rating is so low. Leigh Bardugo is no new to the publishing industry. This is not Leigh Bardugo's first book. Therefore, I do feel as though there are some things she should have prefaced in this book, especially making the transition from YA to adult. The major thing I feel needs to be prefaced and discussed are the fucking trigger warnings. Or more simply put, the lack thereof. There are zero trigger warnings in this book despite a graphic scene of SA against a 12 year old girl, as well as another girl at a frat party. I somewhat understand the need for these situations, (I will discuss the need to frequently traumatize women at a later date) but there should have been some form of a warning considering how graphic they are. If one of Leigh's loyal readers went from any of her previous series straight to this one, this would be a rather rude awakening. I haven't even begun to talk about the graphicness of the violence in the book. Everything is very detailed, some of it unnecessarily so. This is why this book has such a low rating for me.
The Final Verdict
If you are going into this expecting anything like Leigh Bardugo's previous books, please don't. The content in this truly is created for adults and even unsettled me. If you have mentally prepared for this book and have looked into the content it holds, I truly believe you will thoroughly enjoy it. I would have enjoyed it much more if it weren't for the fact that I had to witness a very graphic SA without warning.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Gore, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail