Ninth House is an incredibly dark and mysterious book. I found this to be a slow burn and although I was intrigued by the mystery elements, I found that I couldn't fully immerse myself into the world. There is a lot of content which would certainly require trigger warnings such as child sexual assault and I found myself having to put it down and walk away from it for a bit. Despite this, I enjoyed the concept but felt that perhaps some of the more violent content was a little too much for me personally.

I DNFed this book at the first child rape scene, which was not adequately given content warnings when I downloaded the book.

Leigh Bardugo has won millions of hearts with her young adult fantasy series. It’s no miracle her debut adult title was going to be THE most anticipated release. Since October, the book has tallied up a neat 33k+ ratings with the current average of 4.15 – not bad! Not bad at all! … or, is it?

Adult debut, and yep, this is one comes with heavy trigger warnings: rape, abuse (both sexual and drug), death.

You’d think this sounds like a title right up my dark desire’s alley… and yet, Ninth House was a long, hard battle for me. Without pussyfooting around, I was bored, inundated with the ‘mysterious backstory’ of the characters and not really focusing on the details of the mysterious ‘secret society’ vibe, the structure of delivery didn’t work for me – it was back and forth for pretty much most of the book and all of this made picking this book up from where I left off feel like a chore rather than an explosion of excitement.

There is quite the mystery to crack in this book and there’s quite the backstory to the characters as well as the setting, but I simply could not get into it. From the start, I was waiting to warm to the characters – that didn’t happen, no connection, no matter how heartbreaking or intriguing their story. I was waiting to get excited about the setting: Yale, an ‘outsider’ being thrown into the mix of all those privileged ‘insiders’ and secret societies to boot who carry out some funky, magical rituals – yeah, that failed to make me excited as well – I don’t know why. Well, maybe I do… Feeling attached to characters is one of the most important elements for me… that doesn’t happen, the rest of the story just loses its spark for me. Yes, it’s a solid, waterproof and well thought out environment. It was simply too rich for me this time and if I were you, I would judge the book by reading it yourself. Plenty love to go around for the title around the blogosphere, I’m simply not part of the cool kids this time.

A simple fact remains- you will get tons of story for your buck! Whether you like it or not, I will leave that for you to discover and I shall look forward to hearing what you thought of the book!

https://lynns-books.com/2019/12/02/ninth-house-alex-stern-1-by-leigh-bardugo/
4.5 of 5 stars
Okay, Ninth House is a review that I’ve been struggling to put together which is why the delay in posting this. Imagine all the words you might use to describe a book, brilliant, fun, compelling, exciting, enjoyable – to be honest, you really have to remove some of these words because they would feel totally inappropriate. More appropriate words would be dark, macabre, sombre, cruel, brutal, harsh – you get the gist of where I’m going I’m sure. Let me explain.

This is a book with a contemporary school setting, it includes a murder mystery that is really a sort of foil for everything else that’s actually taking place. This is a book of magic, dark occult magic, of privileged youths abusing those weaker than themselves. It’s a book of secret societies and ghosts and at it’s centre is a young woman, who has had a traumatic start to life. This is not fun, it’s not enjoyable, it doesn’t pull ANY punches and Harry Potter it most certainly is not. To be clear, this isn’t gratuitously violent but it contains many elements that will be uncomfortable for some people to read – it even made me squirm a little on one occasion. Personally, I thought it was brilliant in so many respects. It’s a book of survival without doubt, it’s highly creative and the writing is excellent. However, I don’t want anybody to read this review and somehow get the wrong impression. This is ADULT. Forget what you’ve read by Bardugo before – THIS IS NOT THE SAME. You have been warned, but a second warning can’t possibly hurt – this is not YA so don’t be fooled by the academic setting or the name of the author – if you’ve read this author before and loved her work – do not pick this up expecting the same tone.

Now you can see why the struggle. Approximately 300 words just to give you a warning.

So, I’m not really going to elaborate on the plot because this review could easily become a thing of enormity. I will just say that the MC is a young woman called Galaxy (or Alex) Stern, as the book starts Alex is a student, Freshman year, at Yale, she is one of their most unlikely students. She dropped out of school at a young age and lived life on the periphery of society. Eventually, things spiralled out of control and being the only survivor at the scene of a multiple murder was the final straw. Things looked very bad for Alex until she was offered a second chance – a place at Yale in exchange for undertaking some mysterious duties. I’m not going to tell you any more.

There are two elements to the story. The disappearance of one of Alex’s fellow students (Darlington). A young man who is part of the inner magical circle and was mentoring Alex with regard to her duties. And the murder of a young woman, on campus – but seemingly unrelated to either magic or student life.

It’s difficult to immediately like Alex. She is abrasive. Some of her actions are, let’s just say forthright, and she isn’t a shrinking violet – but she will grow on you. Her outer shell is something that has developed as a result of years of ‘badness’ and isn’t easily cracked but as the story unfolds and you witness her experiences you will gain a better understanding of who she really is – frankly, she’s bloody awesome and I look forward to reading more books where she plays the key role. There are of course other characters and they’ve very well drawn and easily imagined but Alex is my favourite in spite of herself.

In terms of the setting. The majority of the book takes place in the academic setting but this also involves an underworld of secret societies each with their own agenda. This is a modern day world where the majority of people are blissfully unaware of the magic that surrounds them. A magic involving the occult and used by many powerful and successful people who have come to rely on the artificial boost it provides. There are monsters here. Demons that lurk in the shadows and ghosts that can be hungry and vicious or simply sad.

The writing is the only element where I have slightly mixed feelings. On the one hand I loved the writing. I think it’s really evocative and highly atmospheric. The descriptions are perfect and I was easily and fully immersed into this world. I did have a small element of becoming a little irritated with the slightly over the top academic references that started to feel somewhat pretentious – but, on reflection, I think those references were necessary – if you don’t understand all of them, much like I didn’t, then maybe you’ll have a feel for how Alex felt, floundering around in an elite school system that she was only granted access to because of a rare talent she possessed that has caused her nothing but trouble all her young life. Aside from this there is a slight pacing issue which really comes about as a result of the sheer weight of information, plot and world building that the reader has to take on. You are pretty much thrown into this world and things are slowly revealed. There are no huge info dumps which is a great relief. The information is relayed in an organic fashion that can leave you a little puzzled at first. There are also flashbacks and a split time line so you really do need to pay very close attention to everything.

So, apart from a slightly weighty feel that means you have to slow your pace out of necessity, I didn’t have any other criticisms and really look forward to reading the next instalment which promises to be very different indeed.

I understand that the audio book for this was very good so I might even try the next in series in that format to compare the two.

I received a copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, for which my thanks. the above is my own opinion.

Rating 4.5 of 5 stars

Content warning: On page rape (of a minor), violence, gore, sexual assault

As someone who's perspective of Yale university is largely based on Gilmore Girls this was an interesting tonal shift. I could appreciate the idea that the secret societies of old universities could be in some way magical (something a lot of fiction about Oxford tries to do too) and I thought this concept was interesting. This had the potential to be a real discussion of privilege and 'it's not what you know' when it comes to 'prestigious' institutions and I was intrigued as to how that would play out. 

I'm not sure this book totally fulfilled that brief. I suppose I just had a difficult time seeing Alex as a student because for the whole of the book she is mostly tied up in other things and doesn't really attend classes. The mentions of them are mostly that she finds them extremely difficult and then she's too stuck in a murder case to really mention it. I suppose my feeling was that while the Yale setting was intriguing, especially from an English perspective, I didn't feel as though Alex being a student added to the story and it weirdly got in the way of my suspension of belief. 

I wonder if that might be because the book takes place over a relatively short period of time and there just wasn't the space to set up regular student life, so all you get is glimpses of Alex in her shared house or in the dining hall? 

As far as a supernatural murder mystery goes I thought this was quite good! There were a number of red herrings and plot loops (distinct from plot holes) that kept me interested all the way to the end. It did take me a while to warm to Alex as a character, by about halfway through I was ready for her to Carpe Diem and start making choices for herself - as you may know, this book is a lot about working through trauma and I suppose that needed to have that time to develop, but I'm really glad it did otherwise I don't think I would have finished the book. 

I can't talk about Ninth House without acknowledging that many of the scenes included in this book will be very upsetting for some readers. I had been forewarned as to the content but its appearance in the book is incredibly sudden and graphic. I mainly mention this to add to the voice of 'there ought to be trigger warnings in the final copy'.

Obviously, this book is Bardugo's first foray into the world of Adult fantasy fiction and I think it's a mostly good attempt. Much like her YA work, this book won't appeal to everyone but I'd probably recommend it to those looking for a quite gory and angsty fantasy murder mystery with a strong paranormal lean. I would be really interested to hear the thoughts of those who read this book without any prior knowledge of Bardugo's work - that reputation definitely affects the reading experience (or so I found). 

I wouldn't describe this as a 'must-read' for 2019, but I think that those who are looking forward to it will likely find it good - as long as they have the content warnings they need. 

My rating: 3/5 stars (probably a 3.5)

I received a free digital copy of this book from the publisher. All opinions are my own. 

Ninth House is available now!

Unfortunately, not for me at this moment in time! I thought I was going to love this because I'm a big fan of Leigh's YA books, but I found this difficult to follow and I couldn't warm to the characters. I'm sad, but I'm certain it's going to be loved by many!

Always so exciting to see a new title from Leigh Bardugo and this did not disappoint. Love the world she has created here and the characters.

DNFed

Hi, hello. I was super excited to read this book, but I DNFed at 28%. Why? Get a cup of tea and sit down with me for a minute.

I love dark books, give me all the grim books. They're super great. But for me, there is a limit. I am very on the fence about publishers providing content warnings for books. BUT. There are some cases in which this is so badly needed.

Why has no one, not a SINGLE PERSON, mentioned <b>the on-page rape of a 12 year old child in this book? Why? Why??

As I've decided to DNF this book I can't tell you whether or not it is necessary to the story, but sorry y'all. I just don't think that including the graphic rape of a child, especially one that happens on the page, is ever going to be necessary.

Really disappointed in Leigh for not being vocal about this. Every author with this kind of content should follow R. F. Kuang's example and be shouting about the content warnings for their books. Authors and publishers need to do better with this kind of thing.