Let's get a few things out of the way first. I'm not a big fantasy reader, I've never read any other Leigh Bardugo book, and I'm 100% completely in love with this book. Are those three things related? Who knows. But from the very beginning of this book I was hooked and it gave me one of the biggest book hangovers I've had in a long time.
Ninth House is centered around Galaxy "Alex" Stern and her investigation into the death of a girl on her college campus. Sounds pretty straight forward, however, once the secret societies and supernatural elements get added in, it is just fantastic. I loved how this book is set at Yale and the campus itself plays a very important part in the story. I think most people are familiar with the Skull and Bones 'secret' society but there are so many others in this book and Alex works for the agency overseeing their activities. I grew up in New England, but have never been to Yale's campus. However, from a few reviews I've read, Bardugo very accurately describes and uses the buildings on campus correctly in the novel. From growing up in New England, I appreciated the overall atmosphere of mixing current day prestige with the ghost stories of the past. I loved almost everything about this book but I'll try to just point out a few favorite aspects that really elevated this book for me.
First, mixing points of view changes with flashbacks was expertly done and enhanced the tension and character relationships in the novel. We know from the beginning of the book that Alex's trainer, Darlington, is not on campus. We get some allusions to what happened through Alex's internal monologue as well as her interaction with other members of these secret societies. Flashbacks to before Darlington left show us him and Alex meeting and learning how to work together which lends weight to present day Alex's thoughts. The POV in the present is Alex, but the flashbacks are from Darlington's POV which gives the reader extra information about the way the societies are run that Alex doesn't know yet. It also gives us an additional view of Alex and how she presents and interacts with other characters. We also, in the later parts of the book, get flashbacks to Alex and Darlington when they were younger, before Yale. Flashbacks usually work for me, but if they come up too often, they tend to feel like they're taking the reader out of the story. Not so in this case even though just about every other chapter is a flashback. After reflecting for a while, I decided the reason they were so effective in Ninth House was because we are basically following and trying to solve two separate mysteries: what happened to Darlington and what happened to the murdered girl. So when one chapter gets us further in the murdered girl mystery, then we switch to a flashback with Darlington, it doesn't feel like we're being taken away from the mystery of the story - we're simply switching to the other mystery. The flashbacks to Alex and Darlington before Yale were also directly involved with the present day plot so even those didn't feel like they were just for backstory or just to increase tension before we get back to the main story.
Alex, I felt, was one of the most well-fleshed out character I've read in a fantasy book in a long time (fully aware that I don't read much fantasy so not sure how valid this opinion is). She just felt so real. She had a hard upbringing and we know she gets involved with drug dealers at some point. But then she's at Yale and obviously doesn't feel like she fits in. She is putting up walls between her and everyone else - Darlington, her roommates, her professors, etc - but when those walls start to crack, she has very real fears that people won't like her anymore. That they will see the true Alex and be scared. She comes from a very different world than the usual ivy league student and she is acutely aware of that in many situations. However, as the novel progresses, she is able to lower her walls a bit, she gets used to how these secret societies function and how to make the system she was so unfamiliar with originally work for her. When she messed up with someone she cared about, she went out of her way to fix things. It wasn't the most conventional way of fixing her mistake, but it was Alex's way of making amends and it just worked so well for me. I will admit that, at first, it isn't really clear why Alex is so invested in this new life at Yale when she seems to almost hate everyone and everything there, but as the novel progresses and we get more backstory, I think her motivations for staying really come through. I would say I'm a character-driven reader so when characters click with my brain, I absolutely can't get enough of them.
As much as I loved this book, and I have so many other praises for it, it almost fell apart at the end for me and I'll try to explain why in the best non-spoiler way I can.
So first off, I've never read any of Leigh Bardugo's other books but I was aware that she has a lot of series. I thought that this was a stand-alone novel, however, that is not the case - on Goodreads, it has (Alex Stern #1) under the title. If I had known that going in, then I might not have had such a visceral reaction to the somewhat cliffhanger ending. I also probably wouldn't have read Ninth House before the sequel was available because I sort of really really hate that feeling of having to wait for the next installment (this is also why I primarily wait for entire seasons of TV shows to be available to watch before starting a show). I do want to clarify that the ending was actually really good, from purely a plot perspective. We got answers to the mysteries presented so it wasn't like the book is leaving the reader unfulfilled after 400+ pages. And there was enough aftermath of those answers that would leave the door open to a sequel which I actually really liked. If the book had ended literally a page or two earlier, I would have been completely fine and had no problem with this book at all. It would have felt like a stand-alone novel that left a window open for a possible sequel if it sold well enough. However, the last pages were where I lost my marbles.
In the last scene, Alex and crew run into someone who helped them earlier in the novel, we'll call her Betty. Alex tells Betty that they need her help with Project X. Betty says Project X can't work because of A, B, and C. Alex says that she thinks they can still do Project X because A, B, and C are not what they seem. And then, if this had been a teen movie from the 80s, they would have jumped in the air and it would freeze-framed and that would be the end. Hopefully that description is vague enough to not spoil anything. What bothered me, was that Alex and 'Betty' didn't really have any sort of relationship after Betty helped Alex the one time in the book. I understand that Betty was the person with the experience Alex needed, but the interaction was overly familiar and didn't mesh with my understanding of their relationship. Also, Alex saying that 'A, B, and C weren't what they seemed' lessened the stakes of a previous plot point which is one of my biggest pet peeves in books. If there are huge, life altering stakes of a decision or action and then later in the book those stakes are magically reversed or lessened, then it lowers the tension in the entire novel. If Y can be fixed, then Z will probably be fixed later so I shouldn't care so much about it now. I thought there were enough loose ends or open windows to have a sequel that continued Alex's story in a very natural way. I did not appreciate the heavy handedness with which Bardugo finished off this novel and honestly the fact that my one big issue with the novel was in the last two pages out of a 400+ page novel is both wonderful and wonderfully frustrating.
That being said, this will be one book I recommend to just about anyone who even remotely likes fantasy gothic mystery stuff.
Overall, one of the best books I've read in a long time. Fantasy, gothic, mystery, thriller, great characters, interesting setting, intrigue, good twists, great structure, stumbles right at the end for me but I can't wait for the next book.
459 pages
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