Ninth House

By Leigh Bardugo

When Galaxy “Alex” Stern gets the deal of a lifetime - a full ride at Yale - there’s only one thing missing, the catch. Alex is a high school drop out with a very troubled past (to say the least). But when a mysterious benefactor offers her a full ride at Yale, she jumps at the chance of starting over. Alex possesses a unique gift that her benefactor values and employs her to monitor the activities of Yale’s secret societies. 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. Alex quickly learns that things at Yale are very complicated and nothing is as it seems. As she struggles to keep up with her classes, she also begins looking deeper into the occult activities the societies perform, and discovers things are even more sinister and extraordinary that any paranoid imagination might conceive.

Admittedly, in the beginning, I had a hard time getting into this story. It is definitely a slow burn and I felt like I was playing catch up while trying to figure out what the heck was going on. Bardugo plays with timelines a bit as she cleverly sprinkles in background info through Darlington’s POV while continuing to move the story along with what is happening in the present with Alex’s POV. Bardugo spins a world of magic and deceit that almost makes it seem real. Before I knew it, I was hooked and couldn’t put the book down. I give this book a rating of 4 stars. I really liked the dual POV. The writing is flawless. The story was very entertaining and kept me guessing what was going to happen next in each chapter. Bardugo definitely had some surprises up her sleeves! I love her Grisha series but this book is nothing like them. This book has a darkness to it. It does contain some triggers (rape, drug use, and murder) in it, however, it doesn’t go into great detail. Overall, I really enjoyed reading Ninth House and I’m ready to get my hands on the next book!