Review: Ninth House

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4 stars.

“𝓟𝓮𝓸𝓹𝓵𝓮 𝓭𝓲𝓭𝓷’𝓽 𝓷𝓮𝓮𝓭 𝓶𝓪𝓰𝓲𝓬 𝓽𝓸 𝓫𝓮 𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓻𝓲𝓫𝓵𝓮 𝓽𝓸 𝓮𝓪𝓬𝓱 𝓸𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓻.”

𝐓𝐋;𝐃𝐑:
𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐬: Alex Stern enters Yale as a freshman, despite her seedy past and lack of high school diploma. In exchange for a free education, Alex is tapped to join Lethe, a secret societies tasked with policing the other eight secret societies who wield magic to further their power and wealth. As Alex is learning the ins and outs, she also needs to deal with the murder of a townie and the disappearance of her mentor, Darlington.
𝐏𝐥𝐨𝐭: Wow, so dark and gothic and beautifully crafted; you can tell that this is a set-up first book though
𝐖𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: Interesting narrative switches between present day and a few months later, simple but beautiful prose
𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬: Mostly focused on heroine Alex, who is wonderfully crafted. Other characters don't get quite the great treatment

𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐬:
-The seamless integration of magic into the setting of Yale secret societies
-I loved seeing the reference to Acacia fraternity since it aligns with my professional career!
-Great characterization of Alex and slow reveal of her past

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐬:
-Slow first couple hundred pages
-Not much actually happens- as I mentioned, clearly this is a set up for future books, which is fine (!) but it's just a long novel

𝘐 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸.

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