Reviews with content warning for Adult/minor relationship - Ninth House

Wow! This was amazing. First off, this was such a great concept. Taking the mysterious secret societies of Yale and then adding magic to them hooks you from the start. Then, take a main character who is the complete opposite of what you would find at Yale. Alex Stern is a high school dropout drug addict whose only talent is that she sees ghosts. Which makes her perfect for Lethe, but not for Yale.

This book is very world building heavy and is a bit of a slow start. But I think it's action-packed once the plot gets rolling. Alex gets involved with three different mysteries that have tons of twists and turns. The last hundred pages was shock after shock after shock.

I personally really liked the back-and-forth between timelines. It took a while to get into it, but the chapters set in fall introduced Alex and the reader into this world and the mysteries. The past chapters also helped introduce you to Darlington and get you to care for him. The winter and spring chapters were more action oriented.

There are a lot of trigger warnings in this book. It covers very heavy topics such as class disparages sexual assault, murder, shitty rich people, drug abuse, and so much more.

I 100% recommend this, and I can not wait to pick up Hell Bent.

Content Warnings

j_the_human's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

HOLY SHIT THIS BOOK Y’ALL.

Obviously this is Leigh Bardugo so I knew it was going to cook but I did not expect exactly HOW MUCH.

Pros:
- dark. Really dark. This is the dark in dark academia I’ve been looking for.
- secret societies! Horrible unethical rituals!! A very traumatized girl not really given a choice but to get in the middle of it!!
- complex, imperfect characters who you root for anyways because goddamn do they just deserve something good for once
- REVENGE
- 0 shying away from hard topics. Bardugo did not come to play (and please do check the trigger warnings)

Cons:
- I think there were a few points that information was repeated almost verbatim and that was a teeny tiny bit annoying, but also most people probably didn’t read this in all of 2 days like I did.
- I’m gonna reiterate that this is dark because if you’re not in the place for it, it could be REALLY bad

Overall:
I’ve not given a dark academia book more than a 3 star before but this gave me all that elitism, all that “the rich get away with it”, the “if you have what they want you can get in but never be one of them” vibe that is quintessential to dark academia, but in a way that engaged with the themes and how otherwise good people could fall foul of them, not just making everyone into cartoonishly evil people, because that’s not how the world works! This was dark and gritty and punch you in the teeth with violence and gore and horror, but kept from despair by genuine human connection and that sometimes, even on the worst days, eating junk food with a friend is enough to keep you hanging on.

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janchamp's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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liv_graceish's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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libcolleen's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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bskalka's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

Maybe spoilers??

I enjoyed this book, however my main issue is the Darlington disappearance. To me, that seemed more important than the Tara murder, but by the end of the book they hadn't gotten him back and oh if you do want to see him come back read the next book. Like no I wanted to see him again in this book. It just felt like it kind of got lost in the other mystery and Leigh Bardugo went oops i forgot to write the end to this one so you will have to wait to find out if he's ok.

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klsreads's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Yum yum yum I love how polarizing this book is. For me, 4.75 stars rounded up. I had a lot of fun.

Starting with cons: Due to the setting at Yale, this book runs the high risk of making its readers feel dumb sometimes. Leigh Bardugo went to Yale for undergrad, was in Wolf's Head, and also researched the h e l l out of Yale's history to make a cohesive, believable backstory. The depth of information fell flat to me as someone who doesn't care about the architecture and alumni of Ivy Leagues. It was a good plot device to show Darlington's intelligence, but occasionally read as, "Look at how much I thought this out and how smart I am!" She toes the line between knowing how grating academics can be and becoming an insufferable know-it-all herself (I understand this bc I am a huge nerd, currently in grad school, and can be academically insufferable). There are probably a ton of references I didn't understand (I'm sure some of it was written for English buffs and Yale students). This makes the book a bit too long, imo. Also, the chapters skip around in time and I don't think that was necessary, though it wasn't too hard to follow.

To be fair, Bardugo's world building ability is unbelievable, and I thought all of her main characters were unique, real, and multifaceted.

Pros: Pretty much everything else. Fun magic system, spooky dark academia, ghosts, sentient houses, whodunit, powerful misfits, revenge, a bi (?) female lead, extremely developed world, and a twisty-turny plot.

Important to note - this book is DARK. Like, graphically dark, and sometimes very gross, and often sad. Check the TWs/CWs.

Leigh Bardugo is an excellent writer and I highly recommend this if you like second chances, dark academia, and magical murder mysteries. It feels like this book was set up to knock the next one out of the park - I can't wait to start the sequel!

Content Warnings

emciver's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.5

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