A review by msradiosilence
Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

TLDR; 2 rating, Bardugo somehow included more racist stereotypes, and this is more dark contemporary fantasy than dark academia.
Content warnings at the bottom. :)

Once again, I don’t like authors writing outside of their lane. And not only is Alex a racist stereotype, but also Detective Turner.

Per my last review, there’s been a ton of criticism about Leigh Bardugo, a white person, writing from the perspective of a Latina woman, and now in the sequel she’s written in the perspective of a Black cop. And not only is Det. Turner a Black cop in the wake of everything that has happened between 2019 (when Ninth House was published) and now (read: police shootings [sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States, https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/]), but he’s
a cop that has murdered his white partner, albeit a racist man.
And it’s incredibly ironic considering Bardugo specifically has a scene where
Det. Turner and Alex use a table to track down a murderer for their ritual and he demands they break the table becuase of its origins to track down escaped slaves DESPITE THE FACT that the police as an institution in America were created to track down escaped slaves [source: https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/origins-modern-day-policing#:~:text=The%20origins%20of%20modern%2Dday,runaway%20slaves%20to%20their%20owners.] but I digress.


Another gripe, this one much smaller after the major dislike reason, is the part
with the rabbit.
My running theory is that Bardugo mentioned the rabbit much earlier than it was in the final draft and moved it around, but no one caught it so it just reads like the reader missed something, when in fact they were never given the information about Babbit Rabbit in the first place to miss.


I don’t think I’m going to waste my time or money on another one of the books in this series. If I desperately need to know how
Alex and gang defeat the big bad vampire demon things,
I’ll google it.

Rating: 2
Would I recommend? No. I refuse to recommend books I disagree with on a morality issue. 

Content warnings: Death, Violence, Murder, Racism, Blood, Vomit, Police Brutality, Animal Death (on page), Drug Abuse, Drug Use, Overdose, Suicide Attempt, Slavery (discussed), Sexual Assault/Rape (from last book, discussed)
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