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hakberdi 's review for:
Ninth House
by Leigh Bardugo
“Impossible to put down” — Stephen King about “Ninth House”.
“Somebody, please, put me down” — Me, whilst reading it.
And after one and a half months,
Oh gosh where do I start…
This book suffers from self-identity crisis. It wants to be a thriller, a crime novel, a horror, Dark Academia, a suspense, a fantasy novel but it was written as if Young Adult author was trying to dip his toes in more Adult type of beat.
Oh wait… Bardugo IS an YA-author? Swear to God I didn’t knew anything about that. Like I just picked it up because of Stephen King and his son Joe were recommending it on the cover. And I also have a friend who is a huge fan of Leigh Bardugo.
Welp, even my fan-friend tells me that it sucks. That should you tell something.
It’s written so poorly and so pretentious. Narration dragged on where our MC did little to nothing, while action-packed scenes were a paragraph or one page long at most.
Murder mystery, that was what partly helped me not DNF it, can be solved literally as it was happening. I had so much hope that I was wrong because that would’ve been so blatantly bad in terms of writing but here it is.
Get ready for rape scenes every 50 pages or so, too.
And if one of the rapes was actually character building, then others were just for sake of it. And we could’ve brushed that off if it wasn’t so graphically written.
I’m no snob about rape scenes in books, even with the most obscene and graphic ones, but here I couldn’t help but to roll my eyes each time I smelled it coming. They were in no way necessary for the reader, these rapes were solely used to advance the plot.
Somewhere deep inside, “Ninth House” had a great potential. Especially in Darlington chapters (even though even they are very reminiscent of “Supernatural” series). Maybe it’s just my high hopes that kept me waiting to unravel something that would leave me boquiabierto, like every other suspense induced book I’ve read did.
Sadly it falls short. Premise for a sequel is very weak and very movie-sequel alike. I might read it in the future but I think I’ll just check the summary or ask my friend about it.
“Somebody, please, put me down” — Me, whilst reading it.
And after one and a half months,
Oh gosh where do I start…
This book suffers from self-identity crisis. It wants to be a thriller, a crime novel, a horror, Dark Academia, a suspense, a fantasy novel but it was written as if Young Adult author was trying to dip his toes in more Adult type of beat.
Oh wait… Bardugo IS an YA-author? Swear to God I didn’t knew anything about that. Like I just picked it up because of Stephen King and his son Joe were recommending it on the cover. And I also have a friend who is a huge fan of Leigh Bardugo.
Welp, even my fan-friend tells me that it sucks. That should you tell something.
It’s written so poorly and so pretentious. Narration dragged on where our MC did little to nothing, while action-packed scenes were a paragraph or one page long at most.
Murder mystery, that was what partly helped me not DNF it, can be solved literally as it was happening. I had so much hope that I was wrong because that would’ve been so blatantly bad in terms of writing but here it is.
Get ready for rape scenes every 50 pages or so, too.
And if one of the rapes was actually character building, then others were just for sake of it. And we could’ve brushed that off if it wasn’t so graphically written.
I’m no snob about rape scenes in books, even with the most obscene and graphic ones, but here I couldn’t help but to roll my eyes each time I smelled it coming. They were in no way necessary for the reader, these rapes were solely used to advance the plot.
Somewhere deep inside, “Ninth House” had a great potential. Especially in Darlington chapters (even though even they are very reminiscent of “Supernatural” series). Maybe it’s just my high hopes that kept me waiting to unravel something that would leave me boquiabierto, like every other suspense induced book I’ve read did.
Sadly it falls short. Premise for a sequel is very weak and very movie-sequel alike. I might read it in the future but I think I’ll just check the summary or ask my friend about it.