A review by paracosm
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
5.0
I have mix feeling about Bardugo's writing in general. With her YA books either I love them or hate them. So I had a lot of expectations placed upon her first adult novel. And for the most part I think it delivered.
It's nice to see how much her writing skills have improved over the years. She's a very talented author, her books are like popcorn, it was always easy to come back to them.
I had previously heard that Darlington was the best character in the book, and that's absolutely true. His only purpose in the narrative is to info-dump, but I don't care, his my favorite. I will be reading the next book just to know what happens to him.
All the other characters are fine, I just don't particularly care about any of them. Alex was a well written character, but I have no emotional attachment to her. I kinda wish her past as a drug addict was explored more.
Im a sucker for soft magic systems and magical realism, so of course I like the hole deal with the secret societies.
The plot mostly focuses on a murder mystery that happens inside of Yale. It was mostly fine, but lately I've come to realize that I'm not someone that particularly enjoys those kind of stories.
There was a twist villain at the end. Its one of those cases in which the twist comes completely out of nowhere, with basically no set up, just to surprise the audience that had not chance of seeing it coming. I'm not a fan of when that happens.
The author does this thing that I don't like, which is lying by omission. We get tons of chapters from the perspective of Darlington, around a third of the book is like that.
Regardless of that, it's never brought up the fact that he'd been investigating a murder case for months. It never once crosses his mind, even when he had been put so much dedication into it. You can clearly see the hand of the author because the reason Darlington is not thinking about it is because Bardugo doesn't want to spoil the surprise.
It's nice to see how much her writing skills have improved over the years. She's a very talented author, her books are like popcorn, it was always easy to come back to them.
I had previously heard that Darlington was the best character in the book, and that's absolutely true. His only purpose in the narrative is to info-dump, but I don't care, his my favorite. I will be reading the next book just to know what happens to him.
All the other characters are fine, I just don't particularly care about any of them. Alex was a well written character, but I have no emotional attachment to her. I kinda wish her past as a drug addict was explored more.
Im a sucker for soft magic systems and magical realism, so of course I like the hole deal with the secret societies.
The plot mostly focuses on a murder mystery that happens inside of Yale. It was mostly fine, but lately I've come to realize that I'm not someone that particularly enjoys those kind of stories.
There was a twist villain at the end. Its one of those cases in which the twist comes completely out of nowhere, with basically no set up, just to surprise the audience that had not chance of seeing it coming. I'm not a fan of when that happens.
The author does this thing that I don't like, which is lying by omission. We get tons of chapters from the perspective of Darlington, around a third of the book is like that.
Regardless of that, it's never brought up the fact that he'd been investigating a murder case for months. It never once crosses his mind, even when he had been put so much dedication into it. You can clearly see the hand of the author because the reason Darlington is not thinking about it is because Bardugo doesn't want to spoil the surprise.