Reviews with content warning for Emotional abuse - Ninth House

Leary of how this would turn out since the beginning was slow but once I hit 1/3rd of the way — look out! Periodically, I would return to the prologue and re-read it and I would get a better understanding of what was happening to Alex. I loved how the timelines merged and then the punches kept coming.
Galaxy “Alex” Stern ended up in the last place she ever thought she’d be - Yale - with a free ride without having applied for college. All Alex wanted to do was get high and avoid seeing all the ghosts that crowded her life every day. Especially after the experience she had with a ghost assaulting her, ghosts shouldn’t be able to touch her or anyone for that matter but they are and the only thing that keeps them at bay is when she’s high.
After waking in a hospital to find her best friend and an entire apartment of people brutally murdered, she’s offered a trip to Yale for her special abilities as long as she starts training to monitor the eight houses - skulls and bones, book and snake, wolf’s head, manuscript, scrolls and key, Aurelian, st Elmo, and Berzelius. The houses are practicing occult magics and need to be monitored so that they do not open any doors they cannot close.

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lateralus2001's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

This book took me a while to get into because of how scattered it was to set things up and going back I'm not sure if I'm glad I stuck with it. A lot of what this book tries to say about trauma and class gets washed away with how much good grace and how many resources Alex is handed. It's really hard to convince me that you're writing a character who's experiencing good things against the odds if she has personal connections to cops and school secretaries at Yale and managed to grow up in *Los Angeles.* It has interesting things it's trying to say, but I just don't know if this was the way to go about it.

I dunno. I've missed reading a lot and maybe that's why I originally rated this higher than I should've. I'm going to read the next book if only for Darlington because his story is really interesting, I just can't click with Alex.

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russell183's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

(4.6)

Fun and spooky. I found the nonlinear story telling a little confusing at the beginning but then it really shaped up into a page turner. Really good world building of an underground world of privileged A-holes messing with dark force and some strong characters. I also liked the soft magic system which worked with the unknown elements of the story. I found one of the POV characters a lil grating at times and there also felt like there was a slightly gratuitous/exploitative amount of sexual violence at times which sort of tonally clashed with the like supernatural mystery vibe. But all in all a gripping macabre mystery.

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cwkhalil's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes

4.5

I never expected some of the turns this book took. Every time I thought I knew what was going on or where the events would lead next, I was wrong, there were more layers. Honestly, I loved every minute of it! This is what I expect when I read a dark academia. It was the perfect combination of dark, magic, suspense and mystery. My one complaint is the timeline jumping; it felt a bit disruptive, but maybe that was the point. I can’t wait to start Hell Bent!

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_laurenslittlelibrary_'s review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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loudonuts's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

opening with several tedious chapters of Yale circlejerking was already a huge turn off. i expected to eventually like the main character- the author desperately wants you to- but i never came around on her. the institutionalisation of the magic was the most interesting part, but there was not enough substance to it. i can see that the author wanted to tell a story about the consequences of privilege and power in NINTH HOUSE, but for me, nothing truly satisfying was done with that premise. it is mostly a basic whodunnit with a main character that is handed answers rather than the reader being able to piece it together. a generous 2 stars from me, but only because of the hints of an interesting magic system.

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ihssu0624's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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