Ninth House Review

My friend Chloe very kindly sent me Ninth House for Christmas and being an impatient and naughty lady, I opened the package early. I have been on a bit of a dark academia kick this season, so I dove right into it. Before I continue with this review, I will list some trigger warnings: sexual assault, rape, sexual assault of minors, drug and alcohol abuse.

I will admit that I was very confused for the first 150 pages of this book and did not really know what was going on, but as I got more into it, it started to make sense, and I enjoyed the overall experience of this book. We follow Alex (short for Galaxy) Stern (see, it’s the German word for “star” — very clever) as she gets a second chance at stability after a misspent youth, culminating in a terrible tragedy. She has been recruited to keep an eye on the secret societies at Yale in exchange for a full scholarship. After inhabiting the story and the setting for a while, I did settle into the narrative and figure out what was happening, so I would recommend this book, but keep in mind that the beginning can be confusing.

When a girl is murdered on campus, she is determined to find her killer and employs her supernatural abilities to help her on this path. She has an antagonistic relationship with the lead detective assigned to the case, who she tries to needle for information to solve the mystery, which is both compelling and entertaining — something I appreciated greatly, given the many dark themes in the story. The story also has a good balance between action and fighting and character development and growth.

Through flashbacks throughout, we learn about her past and the bad decisions she made leading up to the tragedy and her induction into the Yale world. I enjoyed this format, which kept the story constantly fresh and interesting.

Ninth House is included on a lot of dark academia lists, but I am not sure I would count it. To me, dark academia must include actual academics in the plot, and this book does not really show Alex going to classes and engaging with academic work. I am sure I will write about my many opinions on the dark academia genre in the future, so I will leave it here for now.

This book had a satisfying ending, but left a few things open for continuation. The wrap-up was also not overly neat, which I appreciated. I am very much looking forward to continuing with this series and reading more of Leigh Bardugo’s work in general.