Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

318 reviews

amarks's review against another edition

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug use, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Excrement, and Murder

klsreads's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Grief, Stalking, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Forced institutionalization and Xenophobia

caelinsullivan's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Blood, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Self harm, Sexual violence, Excrement, and Classism

Minor: Vomit, Stalking, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

solina's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny 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? It's complicated

5.0

Lots of mystery and snark, with just a little bit of is-it-romantic-maybe-a-little to keep it fun but not too much if you're not inro that sort of thing. Super funny, with great characters you'll love. Lots of badassery. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, and Toxic relationship

brianneh's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious sad medium-paced

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Grief, and Classism

ece33191's review against another edition

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Medical content, and Murder

peace_love_on_planet_earth's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

If this had been a dark romance there would have been an abundance of content warnings. No it’s not a romance BUT it needed content warnings. I don’t appreciate having the detailed depiction of an SA of a minor come out of no where in a flashback. Warning for others before going into this, this book contains: the SA of a minor (graphic), sexual coercion of a minor, a minor in an abusive “romantic” relationship (graphic), domestic violence involving a minor, a minor abusing drugs and alcohol. When I say minor, I mean a child age 12-15. This had so many triggers for me and I would’ve liked to have been warned. I kept reading because I wanted Alex to receive some kind of validation for what happened to her but it never came. Bardugo also wrote something questionable about survivors which if you’re reading and haven’t healed or something just happened to you then I would find it extremely damaging. I would’ve liked for her friendship with Dawes to develop more but it also didn’t, perhaps in the next one. It was also slow af at the start. This isn’t fiction for some people and it can be extremely damaging. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Murder, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

vickymcckey's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

I’m not a big fan of fantasy as a rule, but this book was a fun read once I got into it. It felt a tad preachy at times and at others it seemed a little “shock value for shock value’s sake”, but overall I adored the characters and world building and am definitely going to read the sequel.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Self harm and Medical content

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

seawaypirate's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Excrement

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Toxic relationship, Blood, and Murder

lateralus2001's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, and Trafficking