January Review: "Ninth House"

“Mors irrumat omnia. Death fucks us all.”

Content Warning: This book includes graphic depictions of rape, sexual assault, and drug use.

Title: Ninth House

Author: Leigh Bardugo

Published: October 8th 2019, Flatiron Books

Genre: Adult, Fantasy, Mystery, Fiction

Leigh Bardugo, fiction author, hero, queen, goddess, has done it again. The brilliant mind behind some of my favorite characters in YA Fantasy (Nikolai Lantsov, anyone?) has written a debut adult novel, a ghost story, Ninth House.

Ninth House is the story of what realistic magic would look like in a cynical view of today’s modern age. On the surface, Ninth House feels made for adult fans of Harry Potter. A girl is chosen to attend magical college, despite her own meager past. However, instead of being rescued from the closet under the stairs by a friendly half-giant, Alex is pulled from her rock bottom and used as a pawn in the same world you and I live in: a greedy, capitalistic society that consumes all it can from the people of the Earth and gives nothing back.

“I want to survive this world that keeps trying to destroy me.”

I loved Ninth House. I was entranced by the raw, gritty, cynicism of this version of Yale. So much fantasy fiction today focuses on pulling us out of our day-to-day and into the persona of a perfect heroine, the chosen one with perfect hair and a perfect love interest and buckets of magical powers. Even Katniss Everdeen, who struggled with mental illness, poverty, and a generally unlikeable attitude (INTJs unite!), had beautiful dresses, bountiful feasts, a trustworthy mentor, and beautiful people adoring her on the daily. In the dark world of The Hunger Games we can still find escapism.

But not so much with Alex.

Galaxy “Alex” Stern is a fighter. There’s action from page one; when we find Alex, she’s bleeding from an old wound, cooped up in some apartment, and, unbeknownst to us, about to be rescued. We experience the story of Lethe House, the ninth secret society of Yale, in flashback, following Alex through scrape and failure. She’s always able to pull herself out, even from a literal drowning, scrappy as ever. She’s got an amazing sense of self-preservation, and no hero complex, something very few fantasy protagonists can claim (looking at you, Jon Snow).

Darlington’s chapters offer a nice alternative viewpoint. Darlington does love magic and does get to be the golden boy with the perfect friends and the huge house with rich family. But even Darlington (and I adore Leigh Bardugo for this), has a deeply troubled life and a complicated relationship with his parents. These two make quite a pair; Alex feels like a disappointment, Darlington feels cheated out of a protege.

Urban fantasy has a bad rap for being too-sweet brain candy with trope sprinkles. Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House challenges this escapist genre with something dark, cynical, and superbly real. Yes, Alex was given an opportunity–an opportunity to dig herself out of a terrible situation and work hard and attend school and to do more than simply survive. That’s pretty magical to me.

I’m giving Ninth House a full 5/5, a rare thing.

“Peace was like any high. It couldn't last. It was an illusion, something that could be interrupted in a moment and lost forever.”

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