From the Bookshelf of 2025 Reading Challenge…

Ninth House (Alex Stern, #1)

Leigh Bardugo

Start date: March 1, 2024

Finish date: March 31, 2024

Discussion: September 2025 Group Read

Why we're reading this: Group Read for March 2024
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September 2025 Group Read

The House in the Cerulean Sea: Pre-Reading Discussion
By Winter , Group Reads · 7 posts · 30 views

last updated Sep 17, 2025 05:32AM

The House in the Cerulean Sea: Reviews by 2025 Reading Challengers
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last updated Sep 14, 2025 10:27AM

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What Members Thought

Jul 05, 2020 Kristi rated it really liked it

Shelves: reading-challenge-2020

Alex Stern isn't like the other freshmen at Yale. She never even applied. But she's been brought there for a reason, and she soon finds herself admitted to the inner sanctums of the university's secret societies. Skull and Bones, Scroll and Key, Book and Snake... Alex learns that their deepest secrets are way worse than anyone might have imagined, but when a young woman is murdered, she realizes that she's only scratched the surface of the darkness at work in New Haven.

I was surprised by how muc Alex Stern isn't like the other freshmen at Yale. She never even applied. But she's been brought there for a reason, and she soon finds herself admitted to the inner sanctums of the university's secret societies. Skull and Bones, Scroll and Key, Book and Snake... Alex learns that their deepest secrets are way worse than anyone might have imagined, but when a young woman is murdered, she realizes that she's only scratched the surface of the darkness at work in New Haven.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. As with many books with alternating points of view, it took a bit to hit its stride, but once the chapters began to converge closer in time and the linkages between the different events became clearer, it really started moving. There are a lot of moving parts in the story, but it does actually end up adding up to something worthwhile in the end, and the reader is left with enough unresolved complexity to be able to look forward to a sequel.

** spoilers ahead **

I am not a particular fan or partisan of Yale, nor have I been particularly fascinated by the legends of their secret societies, so I wasn't sure what I would think of this book. I read Shadow and Bone a long time ago and never finished the series, so I was curious to see a more mature offering from Leigh Bardugo. Ninth House is definitely dark, darker than I had anticipated. I actually had to read some of the passages in the opening chapter a couple of times to make sure that I really understood correctly that a living person was being dissected. Alex's adolescent supernatural rape scene was quite graphic, as were some of the non-consensual sex scenes involving Alex and Mercy. The cruelty in this world is self-evident and pervasive, although the heroine manages to carve out small bits of justice for herself here and there.

I think that the last half third of so really made this whole book for me. The big reveal gave me serious Slade House vibes, when Daisy/Belbalm describes how she ate the souls of other young women in order to stay alive. Loved that resolution, even if I don't totally understand how their souls could have been retrieved if they were in fact eaten and Daisy had been using them to sustain herself. I suspected the dean of Tara's murder, but I thought that the societies were probably behind the historical murders, so pinning it all on Daisy was a good twist at the end, as was the whole "Darlington's not really dead" ending. I look forward to reading the next installment. ...more

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Mar 19, 2022 Erin rated it liked it · review of another edition

This book took forever for me to get into. I think the story is an interesting concept but found it a bit lackluster at times. I will be reading the 2nd because I found myself interested in Alex near the end, but it was a slow relationship to develop. Maybe that was on purpose given the characters background though? Glad I read it but wouldn’t rush to read it again.

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