Book Review : 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. 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.

The mesmerizing adult debut from #1 New York Times bestselling author Leigh Bardugo.

Ghosts, drugs, death, murder, and magic at Yale University? Yup, that’s how literary Queen, Leigh Bardugo has it in her first adult fiction book. I repeat, ADULT FICTION, NOT YA. 

Bardgo definitely delivered on this one although for the first time I felt a little bored at the start. I was about 5 to 7 chapters in before I felt an upsurge in action. I did also have an issue with a certain moment in this book. While it did connect a little to the main plot for our lead, Alex, I also felt like it was a shock factor addition but I know Leigh doesn’t play that game. Major trigger warning was necessary as well. 

Speaking of Galaxy, or Alex, she is a fantastic badass who can see the dead and who owns her flaws and all. Plot revolves around solving a murder and a missing person situation. College, evil? Who woulda thought?

 I love the characters of Dawes, Darlington (omg), and even Turner. I am so happy this will be a new series, can’t wait for more.