Reviews with content warning for Grief - La nona casa

Because there is so much magical stuff to unpack, and a world within our own to establish, it takes a little time to get into this book. Once I was in though, I needed to know what was going to happen next. This book is thrilling with twists that were unexpected and gruesome. We love an underdog story especially when she comes out on top. Looking forward to the second book.

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evelynnreading's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious slow-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? It's complicated

2.25

Was extremely boring💀 The last 100 pages were good tho

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mealexc's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-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

5.0

A book you won’t want to put down. The plots and twist of this book were wonderfully unpredictable. At first it was to follow the time change in between chapters but it comes to a cohesive ending.

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sarahcelia's review against another edition

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1.0

I don’t mind an “I see dead people” story, especially when dark magic and secret societies are involved. Ninth House was way too much for me in terms of cursing, sexual assault, sexual content, etc. I read far longer than I should have because the premise of the book is so compelling. And for a little while the content that bothered me just seemed to distract from the narrative, not overshadow it. But it quickly built up to eclipsing the story for me.

Leigh Bardugo is an excellent writer. Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom are new favorites from my reading list this year. But Ninth House was absolutely not for me.

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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!

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e_naida's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

Slow start, but an exciting end with lots of twists and turns.
About a girl who is hired by Yale to monitor the secret societies. She is forced to face some of her past ‘demons’ when a suspicious murder occurs near campus. Without the help of her mentor, she must determine if the murder was related to magic and the secret societies.

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caelinsullivan's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No

3.75

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