Books: Ninth House By Leigh Bardugo (2019)

"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. In fact, by age twenty, 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 prestigious universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her? Still searching for answers, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. Their eight windowless 'tombs' are the well-known haunts of the rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street’s biggest players. But their occult activities are more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive. They tamper with forbidden magic. They raise the dead. And, sometimes, they prey on the living."

Ninth House is largely inspired by the writers time at Yale University. Bardugo became inspired upon discovering the tombs of Yale's secret societies as she walked down New Haven's Grove Street during her freshman year. When her friend sent her pictures from their time at Yale years later, Bardugo was struck with memories, both pleasant and unpleasant, which inspired her to explore trauma for this novel but also companionship through it. The "ninth house" in the novel is based on the Anderson Mansion, the real-life New Haven headquarters of the Yale secret society Shabtai.

This is also Leigh Bardugo's first adult novel, following her highly regarded Six of Crows and Shadow and Bone series for young adults. Still I felt the premise, while fun and interesting, could’ve been easily set and turned into a young adult book (I also see a Nteflix series here, as well, as it seems designed for a streaming channel). She may have had to turn down some of the language, but this book is easily a PG-13 romp –an adultish Buffy the Vampire Slayer except without the goofy humor and over-the-top dialogue.

The book is not boring, though, and Bardugo’s Alex is interesting character, a sort of grown up, teenage version of Haley Joel Osment’s Cole Sear character from The Sixth Sense (“I see dead people”). Still, though, its Darlington, who vanished before the beginning and is seen in flashbacks, that comes off as the most interesting of all. Bardugo also introduces a murder mystery into the plot, which sets up a classic procedural element that helps, at times, ground the Ninth House in reality. The book also sort of pokes fun (whether that is intentional or not, it’s what I took from it) at all the secret societies that have existed over the millennia, giving credence to the long rumored idea that the rich and powerful have used the supernatural to keep themselves in power.

In the same vein, though, I felt we did not get the coda the book was seemly setting up, as Bardugo curiously decides to avoid calling out those same people, the rich and the powerful, who use their privilege to hurt others, either by physical attacks, murder, emotional torture, or even supernatural magic to get what they want. But this abuse she sets up gets dropped along the way, giving it an unsatisfying ending

What saves this book, and will ultimately make me read the continuation sometime in 2023, is the wry humor. Despite the silliness of the plot, the gallows humor and an interesting lead have won me over.