Book Review: Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
Spooky, paranormal vibes set in modern day academia.
I loved the spooky vibes I got from this book, especially the secret societies, grays, the use of different types of magic. The prose is dark and complex, and heavy at times. The pacing was a little slow to start, but it steadily built up and I was speeding through it by the end.
Sometimes it felt like I was stepping into a conversation where you're expected to already know certain people and their stories. It was a little disorienting until I started to roll with it.
"I am a daughter of Lethe, and the wolves are at the door."
This is one of my first attempts at 'dark academia' and I'm still not quite sure it's for me, but I enjoyed the ride. Definitely got some "shit I'm late for class" vibes that brought me back to my college days.
I really liked how the chapters were structured, titled by season so the reader knew which part of Alex's timeline we were reading about. You can also tell that the author grew up in California and attended Yale. The attention to detail is fantastic, especially given Yale's complex campus.
"That was what magic did. It revealed the heart of who you'd been before life took away your belief in the possible. It gave back the world all lonely children longed for."
This was a great choice for October. I'm definitely going to be looking into the sequel, and I just read that there will be a third book in the series?! Exciting!!
Rating: ★★★★
Book Summary
- Title: Ninth House
- Author: Leigh Bardugo
- Genre: Fantasy, Paranormal, Horror
- Who Should Read It? People interested in dark academia would love this book.
Synopsis: Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug-dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. In fact, by age twenty, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most prestigious universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?
Still searching for answers, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. Their eight windowless “tombs” are the well-known haunts of the rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street’s biggest players. But their occult activities are more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive. They tamper with forbidden magic. They raise the dead. And, sometimes, they prey on the living.
