Ninth House by Leigh BardugoMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Many books in the last few years have been touted as "Harry Potter for adults", but I think Ninth House is the closest I have seen. It is gritty, dark, magical and pretty dang cool.
Leigh Bardugo the highly popular creator of the YA Grishaverse, shows here that she is a writer who can write for anyone.
Ninth House takes place at modern day Yale.. I know at first you are like, yawn, wake me up when it's over. But, once you read the first sentence, you realize that this Yale is way different , more spooky and mysterious than you have imagined.
Ninth House is about a young women named Galaxy Stern or Alex. She has been brought to Yale because she can see things others cannot. Namely, dead people or Grays. You see, at Yale there are a bunch of secret societies that deal with various magical and occult properties and they have some very famous alumni, George W. Bush, Jodie Foster, Anderson Cooper and others. The 8 Houses are watched or policed by Lethe House. Lethe are the caretakers, making sure that nothing goes wrong or the houses abuse their power.
There is magic here. Not only in Bardugo's writing, but in the magic system that sheb has built using these real locales.
Alex arrives at Yale fresh from some pretty horrible stuff in California to be trained as Lethe's new "Dante". Her "Virgil", Darlington, (Daniel Arlington) the previous Dante is to train her, so that one day he can take his place and train another in her stead. There is an "Ovid" named Dawes who supports them and helps with any knowledge they might need, and a "Centurion" who is an investigator with the police department. One who doesn't believe in magic or what he is there in case something happens that involves harm to the outside world.
Well. something happens. A town girl is found murdered on the grounds of Yale and it is up to Alex to find out why and if the Houses are involved. There are wonderful and eerie surprises in this book, which you need to discover on your own. But, Alex's journey is a hard one with turmoil and death on all sides, not to mention some pretty badass magic that gets directed at her.
Pick this up. You will enjoy it, but be warned this isn't a young adult book and Bardugo's characters have scars, lusts and colorful language galore.
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