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review 2019-11-09 23:19
NINTH HOUSE by Leigh Burdugo
Ninth House - Leigh Bardugo
Alex (Galaxy) can see ghosts.  Lethe House at Yale wants her to help monitor the other Houses at Yale so that their "work" does not harm the reputation of Yale.  Alex is mentored by Darlington who disappears before showing her all the ropes.  A townie is murdered and Alex is sent to see if any of the Houses are responsible for the death.  Everyone is telling her to step down but something is off for Alex and so she investigates on her own with the help of Dawes, another member of the Lethe team.  What she finds is unexpected and unwelcome.
 
I love a kick-ass broad and that is what Alex is.  She came up the hard way, got involved in drugs and other things.  She figures maybe her life is starting to look up with a fresh start on the other side of the country at Yale.  She has no idea of what she faces.  She is smart and learns as she goes especially with Darlington gone.  She follows her instincts.  She is not above putting a little hurting on someone if need be.  Dawes is interesting.  Alex and she do not get along at first but eventually Dawes sees what Alex is.  They have each other's back which is good because what is on the surface is not what is reality. 
 
The story is fast paced when Alex begins to check out the murder.  There is a lot of action.  There is a lot of otherworldly aspects to the Houses as well as history of the town and the Houses.  It kept my interest and I cannot wait for the next book.
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review 2019-10-21 15:20
Review: Ninth House (Alex Stern #1) by Leigh Bardugo
Ninth House - 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.

 

Okay first I like to point out again that this is very much an adult book. It touches on sexual abuse including a child, drugs and many other things. It also is pretty gory, cruel and detailed in some areas. So, while this is an fantastic book in my opinion, if those themes bother you, you might want to skip this one. This book took me a bit to get into, as I was not familiar with Yale or the secret societies within. All I know of Yale is what I saw on Gilmore Girls lol, so the setting took me a bit but after page 50 or somewhere around there it was much easier to follow. I loved Alex, she was such a flawed character and sometimes even borderline on villain, but she stood her own. She struggled, but she was true and grew. Her self-doubt was also raw but she never gave up on things. I loved how she grew throughput the book, not just herself but the friendships she made along the way. A lot of this book introduced her to us and showed us her backstory and it really was heartbreaking most of the time. I loved the Magic in this word, I also liked that we learned a lot of it though Alex as she learned it. The ghosts or Greys as they called here was something I liked as well. Pretty early in on the book it's clear that Alex can more than just see them. I was not sure how some of the things connected but at the end it came all together and made sense. I love the friendships she makes along the way and some people I really enjoyed more, or the way they were with Alex. Like Dawes, Mercy and even Turner, I like to see where things go from there. Darlington, I wasn’t sure but I really ended up liking him and I’m curious to see where that all goes. Overall, I really loved this book, even though it has some pretty cruel moments. But overall it was creepily scary and hauntingly  enjoyable and I’m looking forward to book two already.

I rate it 4.5 ★

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Source: snoopydoosbookreviews.com/index.php/2019/10/21/review-ninth-house-alex-stern-1-by-leigh-bardugo
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