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A review by ineffableverse
Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo
5.0
Like »Ninth House«, the sequel is original like hell - emphasis on 'hell'. The atmosphere is deliciously dark, the story gripping and always on the edge of horror ... Or beyond. Hey, this is about characters literally going to hell to save Darlington.
I love Leigh Bardugo's flair for detail, which makes her world so much richer, more original, and more profound. Funnier, too, though the humor is blacker than my morning coffee. It provides the necessary balance between hard horror, social criticism and magical fantasy.
Alex Stern discovers that there are still things she didn't know about the magic of her world – like vampires. But Leigh Bardugo isn't encroaching on Twilight territory! Her vampires are a result of the magic system we learned about in the first volume.
Hell pushes our characters to the edge of what they can bear - how they deal with those experiences afterwards reads almost like a case study on trauma and post-traumatic stress. As in the first volume, the author anchors her magical world in reality, including its messy aspects.
Characters who weren't very important in the first volume play a central role in this one: Alex's roommate Mercy and the chilled, somewhat goofy Tripp. (I was surprised at how much Tripp grew on me!)
Whoever wants to open the gates of hell must fulfill certain criteria - for its four gates, four murderers must give their blood. Alex herself meets this condition, because she killed Len and his cronies. But the fact that she actually finds three comrades-in-arms who also fulfill this condition was quite a surprise, to say the least!
This is where the lines between good and evil become blurred. When do you have the right to take someone's life? The demons of hell don't really care.
Although I'm normally a very slow reader, I blew through the 576 pages of this book in one weekend.
I love Leigh Bardugo's flair for detail, which makes her world so much richer, more original, and more profound. Funnier, too, though the humor is blacker than my morning coffee. It provides the necessary balance between hard horror, social criticism and magical fantasy.
Alex Stern discovers that there are still things she didn't know about the magic of her world – like vampires. But Leigh Bardugo isn't encroaching on Twilight territory! Her vampires are a result of the magic system we learned about in the first volume.
Hell pushes our characters to the edge of what they can bear - how they deal with those experiences afterwards reads almost like a case study on trauma and post-traumatic stress. As in the first volume, the author anchors her magical world in reality, including its messy aspects.
Characters who weren't very important in the first volume play a central role in this one: Alex's roommate Mercy and the chilled, somewhat goofy Tripp. (I was surprised at how much Tripp grew on me!)
Whoever wants to open the gates of hell must fulfill certain criteria - for its four gates, four murderers must give their blood. Alex herself meets this condition, because she killed Len and his cronies. But the fact that she actually finds three comrades-in-arms who also fulfill this condition was quite a surprise, to say the least!
This is where the lines between good and evil become blurred. When do you have the right to take someone's life? The demons of hell don't really care.
Although I'm normally a very slow reader, I blew through the 576 pages of this book in one weekend.