Ninth House (Alex Stern #1)

Description: 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.

Review: Ninth House is a dark fantasy/murder mystery that takes place in Yale University's secret societies. Galaxy "Alex" Stern is our main character who has recently woke up in the hospital after an overdose to learn two things: that she was the only survivor of an unsolved bloody multiple homicide and that because of her ability to see ghosts, she was being offered a spot in Yale's freshmen class, provided she join Lethe, the clandestine group that monitors the school's eight secret societies. At Yale, each secret society or house specializes in a discipline of the occult, from necromancy to divination, and the members of Lethe are responsible for making sure their activities don't harm anyone, inside or outside of the societies.
  Ninth House is very different from Bardugo's YA novels. The world building is quite solid, however, fantasy takes a back seat to the murder mystery which surprised me. The pace is very slow for the first 200 pages or so as we try to wrap our heads around the secret societies and learn about Alex through flashbacks. The narrative is initially told from two perspectives: Alex in the present at Yale and from Darlington, Alex's mentor until he abruptly goes missing.
  It took me a while to warm up to Alex. She is constantly numbing herself either through drugs or alcohol and she is very cagey, abrasive, all of which are defensive mechanisms. Though she seems to flounder in her day to day routines and is exhausted by trying to act "normal", she seems to find her footing when trying to solve a girl's murder, which no one seems to care. Bardugo efficiently demonstrates female rage as well as the power of privilege and class through out the story.  Readers can tell she is greatly influenced by the #MeToo movement.
  I would have liked a bit more explanation regarding the ghosts and Alex's connections to them, which I was most interested in the book. The book's uneven pacing and a lot of information to keep track of took me out of the story multiple times, but I am still interested to see where this series goes. Had I expected less fantasy and more of a murder mystery, I may have liked this book a lot more than I did.

Rating: 3 stars

Words of Caution: There is strong language, drug use, overdosing, gore, self-harm, rape, sexual assault, talk of suicide, physical abuse, sex, and forced eating of human waste. Recommended for adults and mature teens only. 

If you like this book try: Broken Girls by Simone St. James