I want more books like Ninth House. I want more protagonists like Alex Stern. I want more stories that address trauma, grief, power, privilege and magic the way Bardugo addresses all of those things in her adult debut. These are the simple truths I felt while reading Leigh Bardugo's Ninth House, which has so many accolades, I know that many readers felt the way I did. Alex Stern is not your traditional protagonist, and New Haven is not your quintessential college town within the pages of this book. Secret societies have magic that require gatekeeping, and your least-likeliest candidate for the responsibility just got the key. Alex Stern is the shepherd, but the wolves are after her. Take courage -- no one is immortal, but everyone needs to read this book.
Leigh Bardugo is a #1 New York Times Bestselling author of fantasy novels, her most notable being those involved with the Grishaverse. Those include the Shadow and Bone Trilogy, the Six of Crows duology, The Language of Thorns, King of Scars and The Lives of Saints. She's also received critical acclaim for her novel, Ninth House, which, along with some of the Grishaverse books, will be soon coming to TV! If you're interested in more of my reviews of Leigh Bardugo's work, you can find them all here.
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. In fact, by age twenty, 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 prestigious universities on a full ride. What's the catch, and why her? Still searching for answers, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale's secret societies. Their eight windowless "tombs" are the well-known haunts of the rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street's biggest players. But their occult activities are more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive. They tamper with forbidden magic. They raise the dead. And, sometimes, they prey on the living.
Jane Austen once said about her protagonist Emma, "I'm going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like." I feel like Bardugo took the same concept and made it her own. Alex is an anti-hero: she's abrasive, she asks difficult questions, she's traumatized by death and a survivor of sexual assault. In my notes for this review, I actually wrote: "she's not your pretty-pink skinny and cute bubblegum protagonist and I love it." And I do. Alex and her experiences and her depictions of her experiences are uncomfortable but necessary. She makes choices that take her off the beaten track, and she's extremely likable. Lethe, the Ninth House, sees her as an invaluable asset, but she proves herself to be so much more. She's tough and she fights back, and she's trying to find her place at Yale while grappling with the traumas of her past. Alex is probably one of the most complicated characters I've read in a while, and I enjoyed how her complicated nature validated the complicated nature of all college-aged kids. We're not the pretty kids in a beautiful campus catalogue -- a lot of college kids are dealing with demons, or troubles, or actively struggling with full plates. Through Alex, we all get a voice, and she speaks for us. Not only is she trying to solve a mystery, but she grapples with past traumas, current traumas, helping her friends, and actually passing and paying for school. Her desires align with ours, and even though she's an anti-hero, she's a champion for all college kids who ever wanted to see themselves portrayed accurately in fiction.
The plot of Ninth House revolves around three mysteries that can be boiled down to three (simple) questions: what happened to Darlington? what happened to Alex in LA? and what happened to Tara Hutchins? I won't lie -- I found it a little difficult to place myself in time at the beginning of the book. Bardugo introduces a lot of necessary elements at the beginning, including the introduction of the Nine Houses, a bit about Alex's past, and a "flash-forward" that can throw you off. That makes the first couple of pages a little overwhelming, but as the story moves forward, the the three questions make themselves known, it's easier to cement the timeline Bardugo has for the novel. Bardugo's use of two narrators is also helpful in cementing the timeline and in the introduction of of our two main characters. Darlington not only becomes the book's darling through his points of view, but we can also understand the world of Yale's secret magical societies through his eyes better than through Alex's eyes. In Alex's points of view (which is majority of the novel), we get to see the real stories unfold. I also enjoy how Alex's and Darlington's points of view allow us to see different sides of them. Alex from her own point of view and Alex from Darlington's point of view give us a more dynamic view of who Alex is, and same goes for Darlington. It's a super interesting study in character and how we perceive others, and how we present ourselves that I'm glad Bardugo subtly tackled as one of the larger themes of her book.
Ninth House has many large, dark themes that Bardugo addresses head-on, and with necessary candor. It's brutal and uncomfortable at times, but these themes and experiences are often full of brutality and discomfort. Most strikingly, Bardugo discusses sexual assault and rape within Alex's and Mercy's (Alex's roommate) narratives. Sexual assault and rape are traumas that one-fifth of college-aged girls experience, but the media's narrative doesn't accurately reflect that at all. Bardugo shows the ways in which Alex takes back agency and control for herself and for her friends. She is uncompromising in her revenge. It's a powerful portrayal and I just wish that all women had this power against their abusers all around the world. But just because Alex and Mercy hit back doesn't mean the road to recovery was easy, straight-forward, or so quick as it feels. Bardugo actually addresses that in a powerful interview with Bustle. She says, "trauma doesn't finish with the last page of a book . . . and for those of us who live with any kind of trauma in our past, the idea of purging it in some kind of magical way is offensive. Because we want to believe ourselves heroes who conquer these demons, and then when they keep coming back you think, 'Didn't I already fight this one? Am I not a good hero? Am I not deserving of a hero's narrative?'" Bardugo addresses all the "punches to the gut" she delivers in Ninth House in this interview (which you can find here), where she talks about these things more eloquently than I could. If you enjoyed Ninth House and all the themes found within, I highly suggest reading this interview.
One of my favorite things about Ninth House was the setting. Even if you haven't been to Yale or Los Angeles, by the end of this book, you'll feel like you've walked around New Haven or LA with Alex Stern herself. Bardugo has a specific and rare talent to texture her fantasy worlds beautifully, to the point where you almost don't notice how deep you're in until you realize you haven't left your own house. Yale itself isn't just gorgeous and detailed, though. Bardugo is able to make Yale feel like it has two halves: one fit for a quintessential college student, and one that makes Yale feel like the perfect place for eerie, cold-hearted murderers and magic-wielders. Los Angeles, as it stands in contrast with New Haven throughout the book, also serves as Bardugo's way to study and comment on class lines, women's struggles, drugs, and the dynamic between someone's past and their future as it revolves around physical space. This was beautiful, in my opinion, because I truly do believe that the physical space someone occupies affects their growth and the way they interact with the world. I wish I saw more of this in fiction, and I'm glad Bardugo finally put into words the way I've been feeling about the world.
Lastly, the magic systems in this book feel so real. Throughout Ninth House, I kept imagining this kind of magic truly existing in this world -- and the imagining of it felt real. I kept telling myself that maybe this magic was real, and that it exists, and what a shame it is we've been told our whole lives that magic doesn't exist. I've only ever felt these sentiments reading Holly Black and Leigh Bardugo, but in Ninth House it took on new meaning. Bardugo makes the magic of The Houses of the Veil so realistic and devastating that I wanted a piece of the magic for myself, and just for it to be real. Basing it all on actual systems already in place was the perfect way to stimulate all these feelings and sentiments, and is just another testament to Bardugo's breathtaking writing.
To the delight of all Ninth House fans, Leigh Bardugo has announced there will be a sequel! To the despair of us all, there is no title, no cover, and the release date is a far-away June 21st, 2021. But no matter when the book comes out, I know I'll be grabbing a copy -- that insane ending basically guarantees it. If you'll be waiting around too, stay tuned for my review!
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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