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lambsbooks 's review for:
Ninth House
by Leigh Bardugo
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
“Mors irrumat omnia. Death fucks us all”
Ninth House was the epitome of dark academia. It was everything I look for when reading this genre. Galaxy “Alex” Stern, the broken criminal girl paired up with Daniel “Darlington” Arlington, the perfect, do-gooding boy with a tragic past. Alex was a refreshing main character for me. I absolutely loved that she wasn’t perfect, or good, but flawed, damaged, morally grey (morally black?), tattooed, and spoke her mind. She stood up for herself while showing emotion when needed, even if she denied that part. We see her running from tragedy but we don’t get answers about that for a while. And when we do *slow clap* they are everything I didn’t know I needed from a main character.
“They tried to kill me, Hellie,” she rasped as she slid into the dark. That means I get to try to kill them.”
Alex is haunted by the presence of Grays, ghosts who appear…grey to everyone except Alex. This was a horrible part for her, it led to so much torture and heartbreak and made me so sad for her. Darlington’s envy of her ability was both hilarious and sad. He wished he had that otherworldly connection,
“Do not make eye contact. Do not smile. Do not engage. Otherwise, you never know what might follow you home.”
Alex drawing a parallel between her experience with drug users and using drugs and Darlington’s addiction to seeing through the Veil was really interesting to me. I think people forget that drugs are not the only thing you can be addicted to, things that can hurt you in other ways.
“Take courage. No one is immortal. Do you know what it would have meant to me to know those words when I was a kid? I would have taken so little to change everything. But no one bothered. Not until I could be useful to you.”
But do not fret, Dawes and Turner were just what the book needed. I love Dawes so much! Her struggles with real life, her ability to fix everything with food – or at least attempt to, her never ending thesis. She was such a great character. I was iffy about Turner in the beginning, but he grew on me fast.
The humour was top notch as well. Dark, gritty, and laugh-out-loud-able.
“I’ll text Salome.”
“That seems so civil.”
“Never mind. Let’s break a window and pee on the pool table.”
I actually didn’t see the twist at the end coming,the second bad person. But man, when I did, and what she did to Wheelwalkers, wow.
Let’s also give honorary mentions to the other two presences in the book as well. The dark and brooding Black Elm and Il Bastone. These buildings had their own personality that shone through.
“Never mind. Let’s break a window and pee on the pool table.”
I actually didn’t see the twist at the end coming,
Let’s also give honorary mentions to the other two presences in the book as well. The dark and brooding Black Elm and Il Bastone. These buildings had their own personality that shone through.
“Did she seem depressed? She was distant. She didn’t make many friends. She was struggling in her classes. All true. But would it have mattered if she'd been someone else? If she'd been a social butterfly, they would have said she liked to drink away her pain. If she'd been a straight-A student, they would have said she’d been eaten alive by her perfectionism. There were always excuses for why girls died.”