#ninth house magic

[creekfiend]

I forgot that one of the first things Alex says to Darlington in ninth house is "it's your job to teach me, not to test me. they're not the same thing"

get their (The Education System's) ass Ms Bardugo!!!!!!

[queer-book-character-tournament]

Character, book, and author names under the cut

Linus Baker- The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

Gideon Nav- The Locked Tomb by Tamsyn Muir

Rhy Maresh- Shades of Magic series by VE Schwab

Damianos (Damen)- Captive Prince by C.S. Pacat

[thereadingmoon]

if you think about it, the substance is just the cinderella fairy tale for the nine houses and it's set on the Third

[allonsybadwolf]

January reading stats!

I've been trying out the storygraph this year as an alternative to Goodreads (because fuck Amazon), and as a big fan of stats and graphs I think I'm officially converted

[mylyy]

From Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo.

[slicedbacon]

bookcase

[lost-n-nightmares]

Alex smiled then, a small thing, a glimpse of the girl lurking inside her, a happy, less haunted girl. That was what magic did. It revealed the heart of who you'd been before life took away your belief in the possible. It gave back the world all lonely children longed for. That was what Lethe had done for him. Maybe it could do that for Alex as well.

-Daniel Arlington, Ninth House

[sock-to-the-third]

“Let all become mid-ocean. Let me become the flood.”

pg438 of Chapter 31, Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

[magpiesbones]

okay going to shut up about this immediately but the fact that the book about Ivy League bullshit takes the stance that necromancy is a Privilege and used to cement the legacies of the rich and powerful. And necromancy has a fuckton to do with words. like yeah history is written by the powerful. It’s fitting that it happens at a college.

[chlo-mentine3]

I'm only four chapters into The Raven Boys and I already have a conclusion to make: Gansey = Darlington

[kazz-brekker]

it’s interesting to me that for a series that promises an unflinching look at the reality of a world where the wealthy have access to magic and don’t care about the negative impact that it has on other people (and i think does largely do a good job of showing that!), the ninth house series seems to sort of … pull its punches when it comes to the suffering the characters endure at the climax of each story? recently reread ninth house for the first time in years followed by hell bent, and the scene where the souls that marguerite belbalm consumed then consuming her felt sort of. ikd. optimistic? after all the emphasis on “consumption of souls” heavily implying the idea that those people had totally ceased to exist and had only become fuel for belbalm to draw upon it was a bit confusing to learn they were actually all still around and could take vengeance on belbalm. and then in hell bent tripp turns into a demon instead of completely dying which is probably not, like, a super fun experience, but he seems to almost completely maintain his personality from before so it almost feels like nothing major really happened to him, as opposed to linus reiter, who seemingly was utterly eradicated by the demon who took his place. idk. both of those things kind of made me go “this feels like it is breaking the established rules of the universe in order to make things not be as bad as they would actually be.” i don’t know if there’s a bigger conclusion from this, i’m just thinking about it since i recently finished hell bent.

[stainlesssteellocust]

Me to the character I’m putting through hell in my silly little wip

oh my god I just Kiriona Gaia’d you

[queenvreads]

REVIEW: NINTH HOUSE by LEIGH BARDUGO

3.75/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I was SO excited to read this one—Gothic, dark academia, murder mystery, magic, fantasy—everything I could possibly want in a book; this was meant to be!

This is how it really went..

The beginning was really rough for me, especially the first 100 pages. I am not a stranger to 800-page fantasy books with complicated made-up worlds. So why was I unable to retain anything I was reading in this book? It was modern but with magical elements, shouldn't have been difficult. I kept having to go back and reread. And as I made progress, I kept going back to the start to reread some more. It was not registering in my brain. I think the issue was not only a lot of historical information being dumped but the writing style, I now realize, was just so pretentious. This was not what I was used to by Leah Bardugo. I know this is her first adult book, but damn, it was really hard for me to understand!!

Some issues I had throughout the book were, while each chapter was a different time (past and present), there were also past and present moments woven into the chapters. So I was really struggling at times, thinking where the heck in time are we now? Once I started to understand the general plot and what was going on, it became easier to read, but the story was still coated by complicated histories and things I did not understand. The story was like a very thick onion, and the layers were being peeled off very, very slowly.

So now for Alex. This poor girl, I have never read a character who was more beat up than this one. How the hell is she even alive? 😅 Magic, I guess! This book was actually quite dark, especially regarding Alex's backstory, up to her present situation.

I didn't connect with Alex at first, but by the end, I did like her. I was hoping for some romance, but there was none in this book. I think there was maybe one scene I thought would be it, but it wasn't. Things got really interesting for me by the 60% mark. That's when I finally got into the story, and I couldn't stop reading.

The story really ended with a punch, so I am eager to start Hell Bent and see where the heck this story will go. I hope now that I have a proper understanding of the world, that it will make more sense off the bat.

[wekillitwithfire]

finished reading Hell Bent i thought it was the last book in the series but now i have to sit here with a cliffhanger for god knows how long

[mmxxviii]

i’m already reading three books rn and i have two more borrowed from the library BUT there’s no wait for the tdou ebook. should i check it out (to reread, not first time)

[sock-to-the-third]

Ninth House

By Leigh Bardugo

Disclaimer: brief discussion of s3xual assault of a minor, non-con magical drugging

Wow! What a story! Bardugo has one hell of a way to write them. Previously I read their book Six of Crows. While waiting to read the sequel I dove into this.

Where to start? For one, I fell in love with the setting. Lethe and the Ancient Eight groups have such lovely identities that stand on their own. Personally, I could not get over how cool Manuscript was. From the way it was introduced by Darington as the most threatening of the houses to the magic items— so good. And of course, glamour is just awesome.

If the Manuscript was my favorite house, I’d have to say my favorite scene was when they entered St Elmo’s tomb at Rosenfeld. Just the heaviness in the air and all the worlds rolled off like a dark chocolate when I read it. Hmmmmm… too beautiful.

Bardugo also involves alot of literary references. Not only just in Darlington being a big ass nerd and loving to quote stuff but the way being a Dante or Virgil works to keep ghosts at bay doing literary quotes?

I did not know quoting old books would be both compelling and intimidating but IT IS.

.

As far as the actual story goes, there’s several different elements to it. I’m keeping the spoilers below the line but if you do read the book, be careful at Ch7 pg122-123 for the graphic rape scene of a minor and when Darlington and Alex visit Manuscript on Halloween night for a non-con drugging.

With that done, here we go with the fun stuff!

I’m the sort of person who will die for a good multi-faceted plot. Don’t get me wrong, Bardugo’s pros are pretty good but it feels rare in the book that a scene doesn’t contribute to something. From the way that the book jumps around from childhood past, recent past to present but also the different mysteries at play.

the golden boy Darlington’s disapearance (side note I love this nickname)

Tara’s murder

What happened to Alex before Yale

Disruption during rituals

These all coaless in a centuries long murder spree of a professor you love along with the Dean being in on it. In retrospect it makes sense but I don’t think I would’ve thought that.

The professor, Ms Belbalm makes sense, she did fuck up Alex’s name and it seems small but if you can’t be bothered to know someone’s full name isn’t Alexandra but Galaxy, maybe it’s a sign you eat people’s souls.

Compared to the Dean, like… you could totally see him just wanting to sweep it under the rug and not being involved. Plus he’s like kinda sucky at cleaning up lose ends. His incompetence with being emotional can be just assumed that he’s a sexist guy rather than a big baddy.

Also, I just love the mechanics of the ghosts and going to the afterlife and North (Bridegroom) turned out. The way he ties into it all is so satisfying.

Overall, loved the book and definitely will try my hand at reading the sequel. But fr, Ch7 shook me. Def skipping a few pages there. *shivers*

Sequel: Hellbent