Reviews with content warning for Classism - Ninth House

Her sentence craft is beautiful. She knows when to make emotions punch. She knows how to paint scenes. She knows how to include literary devices that feel inentional and powerful. She has soo many quotable moments in all of her books. She's even good at writing quippy dialogue which I think is something many authors struggle with.
Her characters are intensely loveable as much as they are hateable.
When her plots get rolling, they get rolling. They feel like a rollercoaster that never stops, with reveal after jaw-dropping reveal. By the time you reach the conclusion, you want to snap the book shut and start all over so you can see all the things you missed.

This book... did not hold up to those standards for me. I felt like her writing seriously declined here. There were a lot of issues I had with this book that made it hard for me to rate it as high as I wanted to. I think I would have rated it lower (or maybe even DNF'd?) had it been written by a less competent author. The issues this book suffered from really reminded me of Babel. That is not a compliment.

I felt like I got the point of what Bardugo was going for here. And it fit really well within the dark academia theme. The secret societies, the allure and danger of power and fitting in with the crowd, the way the powerful see certain groups as disposable. I really did see what she was going for. But I didn't feel like she pushed it far enough. I felt like she relied on trying to make things arbitrarily "darker", leaning into horror tropes that didn't work out well for the story she was trying to tell. And every bit of it fell flat for me, especially knowing what she is capable of as a writer.

I would say this book doesn't pick up until around 30-40%, and even then, the plot unfolds slowly until the last four chapters where everything is revealed. I think this writing worked out in Six of Crows, because the tension was constantly being poked and prodded as you followed the POVs of the different characters. Here, we have mainly one POV that switches between timelines in the form of flashbacks. Which again, would have worked had it not been for the weird plotting. Those two things just did not mix well together. I was also really surprised to see how the POV switching was poorly executed, considering the masterful way she juggled six POVs in Six of Crows. Here, both of our POVs use the same narrative voice, and it would have been unclear who was narrating if they didn't point it out themselves.

The plot was also dragged down by Bardugo's tendency to info-dump world-building and exposition. There were pages of narration and explanations of things like architecture, the campus layout, what characters were wearing, that got to be incredibly boring. It also got in the way of connecting with the characters. The only dialogue we got between Alex and Darlington were dumps of exposition and explanations about the different secret societies at Yale. So by the end we are meant to care about this character who I simply could not care less about because we barely got to see him. His few POVs were not enough to make me invested in his character in any way.

Alex herself was okay as a character but I felt like Bardugo's messaging got lost with her. Her motives weren't clear, and I didn't feel like she experienced any growth or actual hardship through her journey here. I liked her manipulative tendencies, but I felt like they didn't have any actual impact on the plot. I thought Alex should have a lot more agency, but she spends most of the book reacting to the things that happen around her and she gets saved many times by other characters. I also wanted to see her struggle a bit more. She doesn't struggle with her addiction at all, or with intimacy after her traumatic experiences, and her status as a biracial Latina from a poor background doesn't seem to affect her ability to fit in at Yale or cause her any issues within Lethe. I just felt she lacked nuance as a character which really disappointed me, because again, this is Leigh Bardugo's massive advantage.

For what it's worth, the reveals at the end were decently satisfying for me. The villain monologues were eye-roll worthy but the final scene was so well-written that I looked past it. Such is the strength of Leigh Bardugo. So I won't give up on this series because I love the author, and I feel like I was given just enough to be interested in the potential.

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juliana2's review against another edition

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dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.5

Content Warnings

saebrown's review against another edition

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dark 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

4.0

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saaraah's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

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lydsgrace99's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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kimreads14's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious

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

4.0

This is a re-read for me. I needed to read it again because I first read it back in March 2021 and needed a refresher ahead of reading Hell Bent. 🤗

On my first read I had given this book 5⭐️, but upon reading this again I’m lowering it down to 4⭐️

🚨You NEED to check the TWs for this one. I appreciate that Bardugo went all in when it comes to the adult content in this.

Even if I was reading this for the second time I still was surprised at times with how things went. Bardugo really crafted an interesting world of magic and some interesting characters.

Yet, I think that what Ninth House lacked was that little something that originally made me fall in love with Six of Crows. While Alex had that “gritty” vibe, it just fell flat at times. Alex, who could have been so much more. While Bardugo kept poking at Alex’s potential, it just never materialised. 😕

I’m hoping that Hell Bent keeps Darlington POVs as I found them refreshing. I’m also really hoping to see way more of Dawes in the next book.

Overall a great book ☺️, and it did help make me excited about Bardugo’s work again after the big F that The Familiar was for me.

Content Warnings

20sidedbi's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad 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

5.0

This book is brilliant, but if you aren't prepared for an unflinching story of a hard life of a girl who has been plagued by SV her whole life, I'd recommended not reading it until you are.

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