Ninth House Book Review

Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.

• Loved the unique and intricate way magic is used
• Centers on the secret societies of Yale, fascinating stuff
• Protagonist that is multi-dimension and propels the plot forward
• Good use of flashbacks
• Lots of information and tracks to follow, but presented in a slow release 

Ninth House is Leigh Bardugo’s first venture into the adult-aged realm. Different from her YA Fantasy, Ninth House is a paranormal/urban fantasy, but it still contained all the elements of Leigh’s writing that make her stories so engrossing. This story is darker than her normal things, featuring adult themes such as drug use, sexual abuse, and assault. The main character, Alex Stern, had a rough life as a high school drop-out turned drug addict and dealer. But after surviving a horrific homicide, she’s given the change to attend Yale for free. All she has to do in return in use her ability to see ghosts to assist the ninth house of the Veil, Lethe, in monitoring the other 8 houses. But then her mentor disappears suddenly and a young woman from town is murdered, and she thinks one of the houses was involved.

There was so much to love about this book. My favorite was the intrigue and mystery surrounding the eight Houses of the Veil. These secret societies at Yale are fairly well known in their existence, but not what really goes on. I was immediately enraptured by the way Bardugo incorporated the magic and fantastical elements into the story. There are heavy occult themes in it, and it’s a darker magic, but it was so incredibly unique. She uses magic in a very interesting way to solve problems in the societies and that the protagonist faces. It brought a freshness to the story. 

Leigh’s character work is masterful. While I feel like I got to know Alex as the story went on, she still remained a little unpredicatble, adding suspense. Plus, the way Bardugo used Alex’s back story to not just help you get to know the character on a deeper level, but to justify her current actions was impressive and made Alex a much more dimensional character. Leigh does seem to show an affinity for weaving in flashbacks nicely and balancing them out with the current action. Alex had everything I want in a well-rounded character: strengths, flaws, wounds from the past, fears, motivations and a growing confidence in herself. But the best part is that Alex is an active protagonist. She makes decisions about what she does and they propel the plot forward. She’s not sitting around dealing with things done to her. She’s out doing stuff. There was also a good balance of harder characteristics and softer ones, such as her sense of humor, which brought levity to the darkness surrounding her. The more I learned about her, the more I cared about what happened to her.

Everything had a purpose in this story. The magic performed was a unique way to solve conventional problems, and accomplish horrific deeds. The side characters each had their role to play in the final outcome. As one question was answered, another popped up to propel the reader forward. The most vital loose ends were tied up by the end in a way I never expected, and I like being surprised. But the key is that I saw how it all came together. It all made sense, if unexpected. 

Perhaps the closest thing to a fault I could find in my experience with Ninth House was the massive amounts of information presented, especially in the beginning as we learn about the different Houses. But, if you’re reading an adult fantasy book, you have to expect that to some extent. And in my opinion, it was more of a slow and steady release of information throughout the first half rather than an info dump bombardment. And I do think Ninth House excelled at waiting to give us information only when it was needed through the experiences of Alex.

This is a highly recommend book for me, and it could appeal to a lot of people. It has a thriller/suspense aspect to it. Deals heavily in conspiracies and secret societies. Maintains an air of mystery with the murder investigation. Plus it has magic sprinkled in for us more fantasy-inclined readers. It’s a good story written well and I maintain most will not be disappointed with it.