Ninth House (Alex Stern, #1) in Around the World in 80 Books

Sep 07, 2021 Astrid Lim rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, mystery, series, thriller-mystery, campus-life, popsugar-2021

In the beginning, this book was a bit hard to follow. I felt it's quite confusing, jumping directly in the middle of the world without proper introduction, and from there, going back and started the intro pretty late into the story. The back and forth timeline is also not helpful to make things easier to understand.

But, after the middle of the book, after I feel comfortable dealing with Yale and its crazy House of Veils, and after I know Alex Stern a bit better, I started to enjoy the ride. It j ...more

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Jan 05, 2023 Sarah rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned, special-edition-edges, illumicrate

CW: body horror, occult violence, rape of a child, on-page sexual assault, drug addiction

This is not your romantic fantasy of faeries and princes; nor is it a story where the heroes slay monsters. In this story, the monsters (mostly) are human. It's a violent, macabre, noir-style murder mystery steeped in the occult. Alex Stern, our protagonist, can see dead people ("grays") and this ability is extremely valuable to the members of Yale's secret societies. So, despite the fact that she never grad CW: body horror, occult violence, rape of a child, on-page sexual assault, drug addiction

This is not your romantic fantasy of faeries and princes; nor is it a story where the heroes slay monsters. In this story, the monsters (mostly) are human. It's a violent, macabre, noir-style murder mystery steeped in the occult. Alex Stern, our protagonist, can see dead people ("grays") and this ability is extremely valuable to the members of Yale's secret societies. So, despite the fact that she never graduated from high school, and despite being a drug addict and having been found the only survivor of a multiple murder, she is given a full ride to Yale in exchange for helping Lethe House keep an eye on the activities of the other societies. Friends, you will find no Life & Death Brigade here. No in omnia paratus, no Rory and Logan jumping off of scaffolding in formalwear holding umbrellas. No. These secret societies can do magic. Dark magic. They have rituals where they vivisect live mental patients, pulling out their intestines in order to divine hot stock tips. And Alex's job is to keep the Grays from interfering.

One night after one of these "prognostications" a girl is found brutally murdered near the campus gym. Though the girl is not affiliated with Yale, the circumstances around her death have Alex convinced she is somehow related to the Societies. The rest of the book is her investigation.

The book gets off to a slow start, despite dropping the reader right into the results of the third act. It then jumps around in time, from spring to fall to winter with a heavy dose of flashbacks sprinkled throughout. Typically, these time jumps are designed to build suspense; giving the reader little nuggets of information so they can piece together what's happening. I don't think this device serves this book well, though. Instead of building suspense I think it just creates some confusion and is a little hard to follow what is happening when.

Despite the slow start, though, the noir murder mystery aspect kept me interested, and about a third of the way in, the pacing really picks up and the action starts to cook. There are some very graphic parts I sort of had to skim, but overall, I enjoyed this story. Alex is a classic anti-hero (cue Taylor Swift) with the horrifying backstory that explains why she is the way she is. I have some theories about where the series will go and am looking forward to reading Hell Bent. ...more

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Feb 21, 2023 Annie rated it it was amazing

Ripped through this. I’m really enjoying well-done fantasy world building and have a LOT of thoughts about it right now!

Anyway: this was dark! And I love Ivies behaving badly. I’m saving Hell Bent for spring break because otherwise I will be useless until then!

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Dec 06, 2019 Madeleine rated it really liked it

Shelves: speculative-fiction, smart-nonannoying-entertaining, series

Whoa.

I almost gave up on this in the first chapter because the beginning is a description of a very bloody and graphic ritual, before you have any idea who these people are and what's going on. I'm glad I persevered. I think. ...more

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Oct 29, 2023 Sam rated it liked it

Shelves: 8-fantasy-scifi, audiobook, read-2023, y-dark-academia

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Jan 16, 2020 Agatha Donkar Lund rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy-and-scifi, fiction, 2020, books-about-creepy-schools

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Aug 11, 2019 Jessica marked it as to-read

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Feb 25, 2020 Jana rated it really liked it

Shelves: x2020-reading-challenge

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Oct 11, 2019 AGB marked it as to-read

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Dec 13, 2019 Jocelyn marked it as to-read

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Mar 26, 2020 Katy rated it really liked it

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Dec 21, 2019 alana marked it as to-read

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Dec 24, 2019 Summer Rae Garcia is currently reading it · review of another edition

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Dec 31, 2019 Jennifer marked it as to-read

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May 11, 2020 mstan rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: american, kindle, fantasy

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Apr 26, 2020 Vesra (When She Reads) marked it as to-read

Shelves: fantasy, e-book, n, author-b, fiction, mystery-thrillers, pc-400-499, c-black, series-1st, tbr-2019

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May 01, 2020 Deedee marked it as to-read

Shelves: year-2019, series-1st, n2, 0t-dark-academia, 00-2019, np-what-weve-read-2020, added-010120-063020, np-what-weve-read-2021, fantasy, 0t-urban-fantasy

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