Reviews

La Neuvième Maison by Leigh Bardugo

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drlark's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

5.0

This. Was. Fantastic. I started it on my kindle about 4 years ago, close to when it came out, and only made it about 75 pages in. It felt unnecessarily dark and edgy. And I do think those first chapters are a tough sell -- a combination of info-dump and dropping the reader right into the story that's a little difficult to follow, from the perspective of a narrator who's not super sympathetic.

It was enough for me to DNF then, but I'm SO GLAD I came back to it. And I'm so glad Leigh Bardugo's writing has continued to grow from her Shadow and Bone series, which I tried multiple time and just found dull. (Though I, along with everyone, loved Six of Crows.)

Our gal, Alex Stern definitely fits that fantasy main character profile of scrappy young ne'er do well, thrust into events out of her depth. Whether she's a thief or a con artist or some other miscreant existing at the fringes just waiting for some handsome stranger to whisk her into another story, I've read this heroine before. And I was tired of her. And Alex Stern isn't NOT that heroine. She is plucked from tragedy to attend Yale as part of the Ninth House, tasked with keeping the other eight houses/secret magic societies in line. She's out of her league, big time. But she's a scrappy survivor, and the snake on the cover is appropriate.

And it's the story Bardugo weaves together with the New Haven setting, the magic of the secret societies, and the murder mystery that is the most impressive. A highly skilled combination of genre conventions. I had an absolute ball. The darkness of the story feels proportional. Alex drives the action every step of the way -- which is really all you need to keep a story moving, and something that so many books lack. (City of Brass, I'm looking at you.) I love Alex, Darlington, and Dawes. I can't wait to read Hell Bent. This is expertly done fantasy, and I am so happy about it.

pappnase's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious 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

4.25

danielasubraya's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

asintsova's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

jlorr's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

4.5

writer6's review against another edition

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2.0

As someone who has been interested in checking out Leigh Bardugo's books for several years, I really wanted to love Ninth House. Sadly, Ninth House ultimately proved to be a rather mediocre book, in my opinion. As far as the characters go, Darlington was definitely my favorite character in the book, and I really wish that he had been featured in the book more than he was. Alex was also a good and likable character, but I ultimately just liked Darlington the most.

One of the biggest complaints that I have about this book is that I feel like the book is full of a lot of unnecessary narrative details that I think could have easily been cut from the book, whereas the book could definitely have benefited from having more dialogue between the characters throughout the course of the book. I also felt like the book suffered from really slow pacing at times; especially when it comes to the last 100 pages or so of the book. Ultimately, while I'm not sure that I want to continue with the series, I definitely still want to check out Bardugo's Six of Crows duology; which I've been intending to read for several years now. I just wish that Leigh Bardugo had made a better first impression on me when it comes to her writing for Ninth House, since this is the first of her books that I've ever read.

My Rating / Score: 2 out of 5 Stars on Goodreads' rating system. 4 out of 10 on my own personal scoring system.