I have avoided Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows and the Shadow and Bone books, mainly because I no longer enjoy those YA Fantasy books the way I used to. And I was planning to ignore Ninth House as well, but the book blurb didn’t seem like it was YA, and the book is set in Yale, with a promise of dark academia. So, of course, I had to give it a shot.
Book Synopsis
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 worse. By age twenty, she is the sole survivor of horrific, unsolved multiple homicides. 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 and is tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s most prominent players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.
~ Synopsis from goodreads
My Review
I am so glad I took a chance on this book. I loved it! It lives up to its promise of dark academia and combines a solid murder mystery with interesting paranormal aspects.
The book starts a little challenging. We are immediately dropped into Alex’s daily life at Yale, where in between classes, she attends the creepiest magical ritual I have read. Seriously, this section gave me goosebumps! And then bam! There is a murder, and only Alex seems to have the grit and heart to investigate.
The book is then a roller coaster ride – combining a journey into Alex’s incredibly traumatic past, the murder mystery, and Yale’s alternate history with magic.
What I loved
♥ Original plot idea.
♥ Great secondary characters. Even if they only appear briefly in the story, I remember them.
♥ The heroine shows character development without turning into a completely different person.
♥ Darlington (Alex’s mentor) is such a great secondary character. He doesn’t even appear in the book, but he is still fantastic.
What I disliked
The book is slow in places, but it’s wonderfully atmospheric, so I can’t call it a flaw. It took a couple of false starts for me to get into the story. But once I was in, I was vested. I can’t wait for the rest of the books in this series.
Have you read this book? What do you think of Leigh Bardugo in general? Should I also read Six of Crows and the Shadow and Bone books?
I had an absolute ball reading Six of Crows, and then wasn’t as wild about the sequel. I started Ninth House a while ago and got kind of bored with it, but enough of my friends now have read and loved (or at least enjoyed) Ninth House that I feel I should go back and give it another try.
It does start slow. I started and stopped a couple of times. I may skip Six of Crows if the rest of the series isn’t that good.