Published by: Flatiron Books
Genre: Adult, College, Contemporary, Paranormal, Dark, Crime, Mystery, Suspense
Rating: 
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. By age twenty, in fact, 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 elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?
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.
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.
I don’t know where to start with this book 🤔
As soon as I finished the Six of Crows duology, I immediately went to Goodreads to see what is coming up from Leigh Bardugo. When saw that The Ninth House was scheduled for late 2019, I almost wet my pants! I love books about college and at that point I was obsessed with Bardugo. So her writing an adult book about secret societies in Yale was just too much for me. Needless to say, that since then (April 2017), The Ninth House was the most anticipated book release for me. I was 100% sure it would be the most amazing, awesome book I had ever read (not having high expectations AT ALL!).
After the initial lukewarm and straight up bad reviews, I was a bit disappointed but my interest and excitement never wavered. I just had to get my hands on this book!
Long story short, the book was great but not what I was expecting at all 😕
I wanted intrigue, mystery, secrets and in part I got all that, but I didn’t expect the paranormal element to be so prominent, it threw me off a little bit. I would have much preferred a contemporary novel. But that’s on me, it has nothing to do with the quality of the book itself.
Another thing I didn't expect was how gritty and, for lack of a better word, miserable this book is. There is no respite from the constant reminder that people are horrible, bad guys always win and life is pointless.
In other words: it was such a downer. And I like downer books, but that was overkill. The hardest thing for me and the reason I didn’t quite get into it as much as I would have liked, was the fact that I didn’t really care for anyone. Alex was the ultimate anti-heroine and a very difficult person to like. The rest of the characters were all pretty terrible except for:
1.Alex’s friends, whose bubbliness was completely out of place and made them stand out like unicorns in a tar pit
2. and Darlington, who was the best part of the book for me, regretfully cut very short. Hopefully, he gets a much bigger presence in book 2 but I have to be honest: it took a lot out of me to read book 1 (three weeks to be exact) a lot of perseverance and patience, so forgive me if I can’t even think about book 2 right now.
All that aside, there were times where Bardugo’s brilliant writing and vision shone very brightly. Like for instance when
Or when
Speaking of disgusting, that whole thing with Blake: Nah, it didn’t bother me at all. He deserved way worse.
To conclude this pretty lengthy and all over the place review, I get why people didn’t like the Ninth House. Most of Bardugo’s readers are YA readers and even though it was mentioned sooooo many times that this is an adult book, Bardugo’s fans would still read it and of course get disappointed because this is DEFINITELY NOT a YA book.
Personally, I would have liked it to have been more fast-paced and a lot less bleak. If I don’t have someone to root for or care for what happens to them, I kinda lose interest. Hero/villain it doesn't matter, as long as they are gripping enough to get me invested. So, please bring Darlington back OK?
As soon as I finished the Six of Crows duology, I immediately went to Goodreads to see what is coming up from Leigh Bardugo. When saw that The Ninth House was scheduled for late 2019, I almost wet my pants! I love books about college and at that point I was obsessed with Bardugo. So her writing an adult book about secret societies in Yale was just too much for me. Needless to say, that since then (April 2017), The Ninth House was the most anticipated book release for me. I was 100% sure it would be the most amazing, awesome book I had ever read (not having high expectations AT ALL!).
After the initial lukewarm and straight up bad reviews, I was a bit disappointed but my interest and excitement never wavered. I just had to get my hands on this book!
Long story short, the book was great but not what I was expecting at all 😕
I wanted intrigue, mystery, secrets and in part I got all that, but I didn’t expect the paranormal element to be so prominent, it threw me off a little bit. I would have much preferred a contemporary novel. But that’s on me, it has nothing to do with the quality of the book itself.
Another thing I didn't expect was how gritty and, for lack of a better word, miserable this book is. There is no respite from the constant reminder that people are horrible, bad guys always win and life is pointless.
In other words: it was such a downer. And I like downer books, but that was overkill. The hardest thing for me and the reason I didn’t quite get into it as much as I would have liked, was the fact that I didn’t really care for anyone. Alex was the ultimate anti-heroine and a very difficult person to like. The rest of the characters were all pretty terrible except for:
1.Alex’s friends, whose bubbliness was completely out of place and made them stand out like unicorns in a tar pit
2. and Darlington, who was the best part of the book for me, regretfully cut very short. Hopefully, he gets a much bigger presence in book 2 but I have to be honest: it took a lot out of me to read book 1 (three weeks to be exact) a lot of perseverance and patience, so forgive me if I can’t even think about book 2 right now.
All that aside, there were times where Bardugo’s brilliant writing and vision shone very brightly. Like for instance when
Or when
Speaking of disgusting, that whole thing with Blake: Nah, it didn’t bother me at all. He deserved way worse.
To conclude this pretty lengthy and all over the place review, I get why people didn’t like the Ninth House. Most of Bardugo’s readers are YA readers and even though it was mentioned sooooo many times that this is an adult book, Bardugo’s fans would still read it and of course get disappointed because this is DEFINITELY NOT a YA book.
Personally, I would have liked it to have been more fast-paced and a lot less bleak. If I don’t have someone to root for or care for what happens to them, I kinda lose interest. Hero/villain it doesn't matter, as long as they are gripping enough to get me invested. So, please bring Darlington back OK?
