Ninth House (#1) - Leigh Bardugo

"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. By age twenty, in fact, 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 elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?

Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive."

I really enjoyed this book, it was right up my alley. Secret Societies, Old Universities, Magic and Academia, Ghosts, Magic Tattoos, Tradition and the "Old Boys Club" being infiltrated by someone who definitely doesn't traditionally belong there. It was a bit slow to start but I, personally, enjoy slower paced books. Bardugo's atmosphere building is top notch and her plot kept me guessing and interested. There are also some really stunning writing/ aesthetic moments that, if I had any drawing skills, I would love to draw. The dialogue was fun and snappy. The character's a good mix of cliché and unique. 

I am not very fond of Alex’s character just yet, she’s indeed a hard girl to love but I think she might grow on me after a while. I already love her wits and confidence so I just need another push to be sure I love her.

I feel that Leigh Bardugo definitely seems more suited to writing more adult slanted content. There is no YA, which seems to have come to mean tweens and up, content here, okay. This really is young ADULT. 

If this book is one thing, it's violent. There are some graphic scenes that show sexual abuse, rape, drug addiction and the sexual abuse of minors. There is trauma and pain and it's not glossed over. That said, it isn’t the grimmest, or bleakest book I’ve ever read. In fact, Bardugo sometimes tries too hard for big, dramatic horror, and the violence comes off as gratuitous, her ghosts sometimes too chain-rattling to believe. Ninth House is about all kinds of trauma, yet I found that the consequences of such a monumental thing are barely brushed upon. The novel is rife with flashbacks, seen through Alex’s eyes as she passively witnesses the horrifying events of her past, but her trauma-suppressed memories seemingly only resurface whenever it's convenient for the plot, and without much of a statement being made besides. And that occasionally struck a sour note.

There’s a lot going on in this book. It is something hard to get into because the beginning is extremely confusing. The action is quite slow and not necessarily that complex, but somehow, until the end, there is something there. Something that leaves you thinking that you actually really enjoyed it. I am keen to read the second instalment when I think the magic aspect of the series will also come into it's own and we will get a better understanding of the characters. 

Age Rating 17+. As said above, quite a brutal book that includes no small amount of abuse.