Title: Ninth House
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Publication Date: October 2019
Page count: 455

Rating:

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo is the first book in a new(ish) dark academia series that follows protagonist Galaxy (Alex) Stern through a murdery, magical underground at Yale University. I haven’t read any of Bardugo’s other works and actually picked this book up on a whim at a clearance sale, but wow, did I ever love it. The heavily flawed and twisted characters who felt realistic, the overlay of a dark plot at a university typically associated with prestige, and the depiction of magic as a tool of the upper class all made for a really compelling story and a world that I was eager to learn more about. This was one of the darker stories I’ve read this year though, so I really encourage anyone intrigued by the plot to do a check on trigger warnings before you dive right in.

Fair warning: spoilers ahead for anyone who hasn’t read this book.

Book Review: Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

Ninth House opens with the introduction of the lead character Alex, covered in blood, wounds, and flashbacks that indicate she feels she deserves whatever dire situation she’s found herself in. From here, the plot then alternates perspectives between Alex in the winter/spring and Daniel Arlington (Darlington) in the fall, weaving their origins at Yale and their own fraught histories together as the story unfolds.

Alex comes to Yale seemingly on the charity of a secret magic society called Lethe, whose main purpose is to ensure that the other secret magical societies across the New Haven campus don’t get too ambitious and/or bloody. Plucked from a devastating personal history of drug use and murder, Alex is offered the chance to start over at Yale due to her ability to see ghosts, or “Greys”, without trying. She’s offered the position of Dante, where she’ll serve under, and learn from, the society’s senior student, Darlington (Virgil).

Alex is immediately out of place at Yale despite a robust personal history crafted by the society as her cover. She dropped out of high school, spent years enduring trauma after trauma at the hands of greys and humans alike, and was found unconscious at a gruesome murder scene of all of her closest friends. She’s behind both academically and socially and constantly struggles with an understandable identity crisis, trying to take advantage of the amazing opportunity she’s been offered while also reconciling the things she’s been a part of or responsible for in her past.

It’s not just her internal struggle with identity that Alex has to contend with though; she’s also struggling with the workings of an ivy-league class structure and all of the pomp and circumstance that comes with wealth and power. While her position affords her the opportunity to join these circles, at least as an observer, she’s acutely aware of the power dynamics and inequalities that are pervasive for people like her. She never really seems to feel comfortable in her own skin until she begins to accept that she isn’t like the people around her.

Darlington represents the other side of Alex’s dark coin. He’s been born and bred to be the epitome of a gentleman and has spent his life dedicated to the occult and arcane. He’s always known he’d end up at an ivy league institution and he represents the principles of Lethe, founded in duty and honour and bound to protect the University and the city at large. He’s daunted by Alex, who both interests and frustrates him in equal measure, but is sure to instruct her in the ways of Lethe to the best of his abilities because at the end of the day, that’s who he is: a helpful, dutiful guy. As the story unfolds we learn that Darlington mysteriously disappears while out working on a particular Lethe mission with Alex and in time we come to learn that his disappearance falls in line with his learning what Alex is truly capable of.

Bardugo writes a fairly dark tale with characters who carry serious and heavy trauma. While the setting presents as academic, it’s the surrounding communities, both on campus and off, that quickly become the focal point of the story.

I appreciated how realistically she presented the case of Alex, who by all rights should have struggled the way she did in such a vastly different environment and with the life experiences that she’s had. I also appreciated that while Alex grows significantly as a character, it’s not at the cost of conformity. She’s morally a little ambiguous and a survivor by nature, which makes for a really interesting perspective and path, and as the story progresses, she comes into her own nicely and begins to own a path that feels authentic to her, not one set by the expectations of others.

The world-building Bardugo accomplishes was also really enjoyable to see unfold. An ivy-league based world of magic that has been heavily commoditized and sits on the shoulders of spoiled barely-adults proves to be an interesting exploration of power and wealth dynamics. In the end, the magic itself also unfolds in new and interesting ways, particularly for Alex and Darlington, that leave the path open for more stories to build where this one has begun.

I really enjoyed this book. The world building was complex but quickly understandable, and the plot was a nice slow burn to the conclusion. The characters were equal parts tragic and frustrating in ways that you expect a flawed human to be, and the magic itself was explored, but also left really open. It felt like there was a lot of potential still left unexplored, which I think is a good place to be given that this is just book one of the series.

At the end of the book we see the characters headed in a really clear direction and I’m looking forward to the next book to see where they go. This was one of my 5-star reads of 2022, I highly recommend it.