Ninth House – Leigh Bardugo

3.5/5 stars.

Okay, hold on.

Parts of this book actually gave me chills.

Leigh Bardugo is one of those authors you don’t hesitate read. While I still haven’t read King of Scars, I have read Shadow and Bone, and my personal favorite of hers, Six of Crows.

I was walking through Barnes and Noble looking for Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult (which you can read the review for here.) when I saw that Leigh Bardugo had written an adult novel, that Stephen King had read it, and that it had a snake on the cover, I was sold. I didn’t read the back of the book until I got home.

Let me preface this by saying I do not read mysteries. I typically have a hard time staying engaged with them.

I am so sad to say that this was the case with Ninth House.

Alex Stern, to put it bluntly, is a druggie who can see ghosts. She gets recruited into Yale’s House of Lethe, a society that deals with the dead and the magic surrounding them. All of this gets flipped when Daniel Arlington, aka Darlington, her mentor, disappears.

This book has a classic whodunit structure that goes back and forth from Alex’s POV and Daniel’s POV during separate timelines. It’s graphic and not for the faint of heart. It keeps Bardugo’s standard dark tone and theming.

The premise is captivating. The execution?

Meh.

The build is incredibly slow. I felt so disconnected from the story. A lot of the jargon was difficult to grasp and the world was challenging to visualize. All of Leigh Bardugo’s other books take place in a made-up place. Yale is not made up. Yale is very much a real place with real people and real societies. The tie-in between magic and reality was poorly done. I didn’t know where the line was. Who knows about these societies and these drugs that are being circulated? One can assume that regular students don’t know and that those who are recruited are the only ones who know, but it seems as though that line blurs frequently.

If the established system of magic does not follow its own rules or have clearly established rules, it becomes very difficult to believe and trust. If the magic system has clearly demonstrated rules then the reader understands what is possible and understands what is at stake. If one knows for a fact that something isn’t possible, and that something is the one thing that is needed to solve the conflict… Well, tensions rise. I felt like Ninth House halfway executed this.

A lot of the revelations that Alex had were incredibly unsatisfying. It was as though she had a lot of the pieces handed to her, which is weird because…

Alex Stern struggles.

Most of her struggles are internal. I loved her character. Truly, Alex Stern is my favorite female protagonist that I have read about this year. I’ve seen that a lot of people had a difficult time connecting to Alex but I enjoyed reading from her perspective. She’s a little harsh, very blunt, and she gets things done. We get a lot of information about her mother, her childhood, and her time struggling with drug addiction. I have empathy for her. I understand her motives. I love her. Just –

“I let you die. To save myself, I let you die. That is the danger of keeping company with survivors.”

Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo

Darlington’s character is also really fleshed out. I fell in love with him. He felt like someone I would want to know and be friends with. Noble, kind, intelligent – all endearing attributes.

“I class profanity with declarations of love. Best used sparingly and only when wholeheartedly meant.”

Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo

A lot of the side characters are kind of flat.

I had no idea who the antagonist was the entire book, which is typically the case for a whodunit I suppose. As a result of this, the ending and the revelations were my favorite part. It almost, almost made struggling through the flat first half of the book worth it.

Listen, I get it. I understand that sometimes you have to take it a little slow to add depth to the characters.

This didn’t feel like the case.

The book was just hard to engage with.

After page 400 I could not put it down. I finished the rest of it in one sitting. I felt like there were four or five twists. I loved the ending. It was devastating and powerful.

I liked the darkness, the violence. I loved Alex. I loved Dawes and Darlington. I loved the twist.

I did not love how long it took to get good.

Still a 3.5/5, for the fun premise and good character depth.

The sequel, Hell Bent, comes out on the tenth of January.

Also, this is the quote that gave me chills.

I am a daughter of Lethe, and the wolves are at the door.

Leigh Bardugo, Ninth House