Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo Review

Ninth House marks Bardugo‘s entry into writing Adult Fiction and it is a very worthy entry. She’s also one of the few authors capable of dragging me out of a funk. Her plot and characters are like black holes (in the best sense possible) and before you know it, you’ll be sucked in.

Blurb:

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. (via Bardugo’s website)

At Yale, Alex is part of a society called Lethe, who are tasked with keeping the other secret societies in line. Though, not nearly as powerful as the other societies, Lethe still has a few tricks up their sleeve. Their other members include Daniel Arlington, Pamela Dawes, Dean Sandow and Abel Turner (though he was probably the most unwilling member they had). With the exception of Turner who is a local law enforcement officer, the rest are either students or affiliated with the university in one capacity or another.

Bardugo herself is a Yale alumna and it’s evident in the way she infuses a certain life in her descriptions of the university, it’s buildings, it’s streets- transporting the reader not just to a place but to one that feels familiar. The place feels alive and becomes an integral part of the plot.

Ninth House is also non-linear. A bulk of the book weaves back and forth in time, inter-cutting from present to the past. I think this treatment enhances the plot and mystery at the heart of it. Bardugo lets us know from the beginning that there’s more to Alex than meets the eye and takes her time unveiling her secrets. The execution was spectacular.

Bardugo is an exceptional writer and I love that her books are beautifully layered. Ninth House was gripping and intense and she managed to maintain that intensity from beginning to end without it ever getting overwhelming.

The plot also seamlessly weaves in class divide and the entitled attitude of the rich. Universities like Yale, Harvard and the like take pride in that they are not for everyone, they have an elitist attitude present and Bardugo doesn’t pull any punches making it crystal clear. The secret societies are exceptionally well-connected, deal with powerful magic without worrying about repercussions because they know that there won’t be any real consequences even if they did go too far. Too much money and prestige is connected to these societies.

There are also themes of sexual assault, rape and drug abuse and are treated with respect. There are some parts that are infuriating but they conclude in a way that is deeply satisfying. But if any of these themes are triggering for you, then please proceed with caution.

The best thing about Ninth House is the mystery and its characters. There are two central mysteries; who and what is Alex Stern and Who killed Tara Hutchins. We learn more about Alex Stern as the plot progresses but the other mystery is so well executed that it every time we learnt something, it also raised new questions. There were so many red herrings and every time I felt like that we finally knew what had happened, some new information came along that upended that theory.

Daniel Arlington or Darlington as he’s often called is a little harder to read. Not the most open person, he has his own struggles to get past. Darlington comes from Old Money, he’s never been exposed to the kind of struggle that Alex has seen since she was child. Yet you know that he’s trying to do the best he can. He feels some bitterness because of Alex abilities but he soon recognises all the ways it hurt her as well. He’s a stickler for rules and authority, always wanting to do things by the book. He thrives in an organised environment, unfortunately for him, Alex is chaos personified, though that’s not exactly her fault.

I really liked Dawes. Though she was closer to Darlington at the start of the book, her tolerance of Alex gradually gives away to partnership, to something akin to friendship. They are so different from each other yet they find common ground and learn to work together. I also really liked Mercy, Alex’s roommate. She seeks her out when Alex is at her lowest and doesn’t let her disappear. She cares about Alex. Detective Turner was a bit of a surprise. My impression of him changed as the book progressed.

And finally we have Alex Stern, the protagonist and the narrator. Stern has been able to see Grays (ghosts), since she was a little girl, something that set her apart from her peers and isolated her. She is a survivor, she survived her traumatic childhood, drugs, toxic relationships and anything else the world threw at her. Her one silver lining was her friendship with Hellie. Bardugo writes that friendship and Hellie so well that you fall in love with her just as Alex did. I love Alex’s drive, her resilience, that she refused to back down even when it would have been easier to do that.

There is a dark undercurrent that runs throughout the course of Ninth House, like a dark, ominous cloud. It’s not exactly an easy read, nor a particularly happy one but one that draws the reader in nonetheless. There is a simmering rage in Alex that, unfortunately, a lot of women can identify with. The rage borne out of feeling helpless in the face of violence, both overt and otherwise.

This book resonated with me in a way few have, it feels like parts of it have settled in deep my core. Perhaps, it is Alex’s relentless drive to keep fighting even in the face of much greater odds. Or perhaps it has something to do with the way Alex and the other girls take back their agency, refuse to let the world run them down, dismissing them as collateral damage for the ambitions of men. Or perhaps it is the satisfaction of seeing Alex come into her own, take full ownership of her powers and abilities, no longer afraid.

Ninth House is easily one the best books I’ve read all year and it’s one I know I will revisit soon. It was the perfect balance of superb writing and imperfect characters that will burrow deep into your skin and stay there.

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker

I’ve been sitting on this for a while. I saw the film on Friday and I’ve spent the days since trying to come to terms with what I saw. While there was a healthy dose of skepticism especially after the mess that was GoT Season 8, I was still hopeful that Star Wars couldn’t possibly go that route, there was no way. I’m sad to say that while I did not hate the film, I didn’t quite love it either.

First the good, there were more than a few parts of the film that I loved. I loved that we saw Leia training to be a Jedi, I loved that she had her own lightsaber. I loved Rey and Ben together, each trying to reach the other. I loved that there was an internal conflict within her, something she had to actively work on. I loved that Ben returned to the light and both of his parents were involved. I loved that we got Reylo, something that quite a few of us had already predicted. I loved that Finn was Force Sensitive. But that’s about it.

There are massive plot holes in the film that are simply not addressed. How had Palpatine survived all those years? Was Palpatine always planned to be the final big bad? Because I don’t see it. The set-up came too late with little to no time for a satisfying resolve. Whichever way you look at it, it would have always felt too rushed. Where was the build-up? You needed at least 2 films to do the whole thing justice, especially with the way the film was planned. You don’t introduce a villain that big and then bump him off in 1 film.

I was unhappy that they made Rey a Palpatine. One of the best aspects of TLJ was that she was a nobody. She was a regular person, like everyone else. She didn’t come from an über powerful family. That was a novel idea, it broke from the old Star Wars tradition where everyone is linked to the Skywalkers in some capacity or another. Her struggle with the Dark Side could have still been a key component without connecting her to a Palpatine.

Where do I even start with Finn and Poe? They were relegated to the background and their entire arc was fairly messy. They served a purpose but there was no emotional payoff. The entire Resistance plot felt undercooked.

There were too many new characters for a film that was serving as the finale for a franchise roughly 40 years in the making. This should have been about wrapping up the story, not adding new elements that you didn’t have any time for. Having said that, I did like Zorii and Jannah. I liked that there were Storm-troopers who had rebelled against their training.

Then there was Ben Solo/Kylo Ren. Full disclosure, I’ve liked his character from the beginning and I loved the way Driver played him. All that unchecked rage at odds with the vulnerability of a lost and lonely boy. His fate seemed especially cruel. We learn in TROS that he was manipulated by Palpaltine from the very beginning, since he was in Leia’s womb. His own parents didn’t understand him, his uncle/mentor tried to kill him. He finally broke away from all that negativity only to die at the end? That seems harsh. What’s the message here? Ben Solo deserved to live a life of peace. The one silver lining is that he died protecting the woman he loved. It was a choice he made.

It is also not surprising that JJ and Terio killed him off. TROS plot, in a lot of ways, feels like a check-list and it shows. They tried to put in a little something for everyone from the fanboys to the shippers (so long as they were not Finn-Poe) They had to redeem Kylo Ren, that was always going to happen but they also probably feared backlash from the majority fan-base. They probably figured that that would appease both Kylo haters and those who saw Bendemption in the cards.

But this is Star Wars and no one ever really dies. If Ahsoka Tano can be brought back from the dead then so can Ben. It’s even more likely in his case because he and Rey share a soul, they’re literally soul mates and that kind of bond doesn’t just disappear. I’m hoping and praying that there are canon books in the works where we see this happen. If not, there’s always Fanfiction.

The end with Rey taking the Skywalker name seems even more disingenuous. You’re going back to the legacy family, implying that the name makes her special. She was Rey and that was enough. She survived on Jakku for years, relying only on her wits and resilience. There was no Force there to help her out, no Jedi masters. Rey is enough, she did not need to take on another name. And while we’re on the subject, if anything, it would have made more sense for to take on the Solo name. She was close to Leia, Han and Ben. Luke wasn’t exactly nice to her when she trained with him, they weren’t close. Why the hell would she take on that name?

TROS would have been Carrie Fisher’s film and I will forever be heartbroken that we never got to see it what that could have been.

The Last Jedi was a revolutionary Star Wars film in so many ways from the narrative arc to the cinematography, it felt new. TROS went back to the formulaic way of the earlier films and it was poorer for it.

I did not hate Star Wars, I can’t, there’s too much emotional investment for that. But this film fell woefully short on many fronts and that is deeply disappointing.

To Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Kelly Marie Tran, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and the entire cast, I want to end by saying a heartfelt thank you. In your own way, you made these films special and that will always remain.