The Ninth House

The Ninth House

By Leigh Bardugo

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.

So, I hate the way this book starts.  We start in "early spring" with our narrator, Alex, banged up and holed up somewhere, and no idea what is going on (the readers, I assume Alex knows what's going on).  Well, okay, I guess we want to build up some tension.  And then we flashback to "winter" and STILL have no idea what's going on, in another chapter without any proper introduction.  So we have to flashback AGAIN, to "fall" and now at least we're getting some introduction as to what on earth is going on, but seriously? That was basically a waste of two whole chapters, and for what? I can't fathom why the author did it, and frankly, it made me seriously pissed off and I decided to switch to another book because of it.  

That being said, if you can get past that, the book does pick up, although takes a while to get moving and it's still a very dark book.  Essentially Galaxy ("Alex") Stern* sees ghosts, and this ability gets her handpicked to succeed Daniel "Darlington" Arlington as resident ghost peace-keeper for Yale's secret societies (and no, I didn't bother keeping the societies straight, and I managed just fine) but shortly after she arrives (aka in the "Winter") Darlington is swallowed up and disappears by some magic hole and she's left to sort of muddle on for herself.  Then she discovers various cover-ups and nasty shenanigans involving murder (as one would expect in a book with a bunch of magic and secret societies).  

I was surprised by the amount of sexual assault in this book!  Haha, not a sentence you read (or write) every day.  I mean, not only the magically coerced rapes, but also just rough lifestyle.  I guess I just wasn't expecting it, not that it was unduly graphic or tastelessly done. LOL "taste" at the idea of drugging and sexual assault.  

The book wraps up the main storyline, but leaves it open-ended for another adventure (like Hench did), and I'm pretty sure Bardugo is already planning more, since Amazon describes this as "Book 1 of Alex Stern". It's hard to judge this one well, since a lot of the Darlington sections felt like a prelude for a sequel in which the gang tries to rescue Darlington from hell (or wherever he went).  They don't add much to Alex's main storyline here, although given that Darlington was disappeared because of an ongoing investigation he was doing into said shenanigans... maybe they should have. 

This was... on the whole, mmmokay.  I don't know that I want to read another one, but I have no regrets on this one.  There was a LOT of New Haven stuff, which maybe would have been more fun/interesting if I'd gone to Yale, or lived in the area.  There's also a fair amount of, well, "building and zoning practices" for lack of a better word.  Part of one of the mysteries is that the secret societies want tombs built on top of nexus points, and no one knows how to make more of them (OR DO THEY?!) and it's a Big Deal if the societies lose the tombs they have.  I mean, I know I've asked for more day to day realism in my fantasies before, but I wasn't really expecting zoning law.  It's definitely not the area of law I would have picked to include first in a fantasy. 

This also had the vibe that Cat Among the Pigeons did, with multiple murderers being revealed at the end.  And SPOILERS, obviously, but Belbalm and Sandow were clearly evil.  I mean, maybe it's just me, but any person of authority in a horror novel is basically a villain, right? I was temporarily misled when Belbalm says her house is a sanctuary, but basically as soon as she invited Alex to a "salon" in, like, Chapter Four, I was like, "Way evil." Unless you're in the 1800s, salons are basically code for "evil rich people".  And maybe even if you are in the 1800s.

Even though the book was a little bit all over the place, what with the flashbacks, and the scatterbrained world building, it still did a good job building up anticipation for the showdown and resolving the various mysteries.  I was reading this on my kindle, so I really noticed the slow versus the fast parts - I would spend what felt like ages reading, and only be a little bit further along, and then it would get really zippy for a bit and then slooooow again. The pacing felt inconsistent, is what I'm trying to say. 

There's definitely some handwaving about how random people/events just happen to unlock huge parts of the mystery here.  I think it's very convenient that one of the mysteries about the magical drugs happened to involve Alex's roommate, who otherwise had no connection to that storyline, but I guess there's some attempt to make it less so, since the bad guy in the roommate story was eventually revealed to just be a convenient fall guy for other villains.  Also how convenient it was that the ghost who just so happens to asks Alex for help looking into his (150 year old) murder turned out to be connected to the other major mystery.  The stars (haha) are really aligning in New Haven, I guess!  

 Ninth House had strong Veronica Mars vibes to it, so maybe that's why I liked it as much as I did, despite its flaws.  [It also had strong The Magicians vibes, which, I hated (but read) the books since I found all of the characters to be unsympathetic whiners and enjoyed the tv show much more]. It had way too many storylines, a lot of unnecessary filler, did a terrible job introducing the characters and world building in the beginning, but for all that, if you want to read a dark magical fantasy about a world wise and weary young lady standing up for The Right Thing against corrupt and powerful people, then here you go!

*Also, how adorable is it that Stern is star in german, so her name is basically "Galaxy Star"? It makes me want to throw something.