Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

Ninth House 

by Leigh Bardugo
Published: Flatiron Books, 2019
Pages: 480
Genre: Fantasy
Amazon, Goodreads

That was what magic did. It revealed the heart of who you’d been before life took away your belief in the possible. It gave back the world all lonely children longed for.

About the book

Galaxy "Alex" Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale's freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug-dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. In fact, by age twenty, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she's thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world's most prestigious universities on a full ride. What's the catch, and why her?

Still searching for answers, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale's secret societies. Their eight windowless "tombs" are the well-known haunts of the rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street's biggest players. But their occult activities are more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive. They tamper with forbidden magic. They raise the dead. And, sometimes, they prey on the living.

Review

My reaction after finishing Ninth House can be summarized in eight letters: H-O-L-Y S-H-I-T.

Guys, this book is EXCELLENT. It’s Leigh Bardugo’s best work to date.

It follows Alex Stern, a Yale freshman who is recruited into a secret association called Lethe which oversees eight other ancient, magical societies.

Ninth House starts with a bang with a prologue scene of Alex very injured and hiding out in a safe house then dives into the storyline — Alex monitoring on a ritual involving the disembowelment of a mentally ill man. At that point, the reader slowly learns about the disappearance of Alex’s mentor, Darlington.

Bardugo cleverly jumps the timeline from winter, the present, to last fall, when all of Alex’s troubles began. The author does a great job of interweaving these two timelines while also jumping perspectives without leaving the reader confused. This also creates a ton of suspense and leaves readers guessing.

In addition to the terrific plot (and writing!), the characters are very raw. The glimpse into Alex and Darlington’s pasts provides a rich element to the story.

There’s a reason why there’s so much hype around Ninth House: it’s because it really is that good!

Ninth House will be a series, though I’m not sure how many books are planned, but I’m going to be anxiously awaiting the next installment!

RATING (out of five puppies)