Thursday, November 7, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo




Ninth House is a pretty hyped modern adult fantasy* novel by author Leigh Bardugo, known far more for her YA works.  I've not yet actually read any of her YA works, so this is my first experience with Bardugo - but Ninth House was getting a lot of press (it got a review in Vox, for example, which is not a frequent reviewer of genre books) so I reserved it some time before its release.

*I've said this before, but I define "Modern Fantasy" as a story taking place in a modern-esque setting with fantastical elements as compared to "Urban Fantasy" which also takes place in a modern world but one in which fantastical elements and creatures from fantasy stories are commonplace throughout - so most usually magical creatures and the like are present either openly or secretly but in such frequency to be a major part of the setting.  It's a definition of the subgenres that's really without meaning but I don't think "urban fantasy" gives the right impression for this book.

 And Ninth House is a really interesting and solid novel, a genre mystery story with strong themes of class and gender oppression, especially that of class.  The story is set on a version of Yale in which Yale's secret societies are in fact organizations devoted to different studies of magic, using these magics to enrich their members and alumni.  Into this world is dropped our protagonist, a high-school drop out who is enrolled into Yale because of her innate ability to see ghosts and supernatural phenomena, making her of great use to the societies' overseers - but who finds herself torn between her "town" (lower class) roots and her need to survive to escape the horrors of her past.  It's a really strong story with some really interesting themes, helped by a very strong lead character, and is well worth your time even if the mystery elements don't really work upon any close inspection.


---------------------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------------------------
Galaxy "Alex" Stern is a Freshman at Yale, rooming with three other girls.  But Alex is not like her roommates - she doesn't have a trust fund, didn't have a perfect high school GPA with sterling extracurriculars, or a family legacy of generations to rely upon.

No, Alex is in fact a high school dropout from Los Angeles, a girl who survived on the streets for her teens until a traumatic incident changed everything.  But what makes Alex special is that she can see ghosts - or Grays as some call them - and has been haunted by them all her life.  And that power has brought her to the attention of the House of Lethe, the secret Ninth House at Yale.  Lethe is the most secret of societies at Yale, tasked with overseeing the other more well known societies, which are secretly societies that wield magic in order to make their members prosper in various ways: through rituals for predicting the stock market, through illusions and compulsions to change minds, through magically unbreakable contracts, etc.  But such rituals come with potentially great costs, including influence by Grays, and one such as Alex would be invaluable in helping Lethe prevent them from going awry.

And so Alex finds herself at Yale, taking classes beyond her capabilities to pass, and in the meantime learning about the world of magic in New Haven from an older mentor at Lethe, a young man named Darlington.  Alex's goal is simple: learn how to use that magic to survive her hauntings and use Lethe's need of her to get through Yale, to maybe somehow find a normal life away from the streets.  But when Alex stumbles upon the body of a dead girl named Tara, a girl not from the university but from the common people of New Haven, she finds that she can't quite leave her past as a common girl from LA behind so easily, especially when she finds more and more proof that the Societies and their magic may have been involved with the girl's death, exploiting a poor girl's life for power.....
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Ninth House is told from an interesting structure, that honestly kind of doesn't work upon reflection.  The story starts in medias res, although this choice never really justifies itself (it's possible to even miss the point when the story catches up to the beginning it's so random), and the story occasionally alternates between two timelines and perspectives: between the current day from Alex's perspective as Alex struggles to figure out what to do with her mentor Darlington gone and investigates the murder of Tara, and in the past from Darlington's perspective as he meets Alex for the first time and teaches her about the Houses and the magic at Yale - up through Darlington's disappearance.  The shifting perspectives causes some problems for the central mystery in particular - more on that later - although they do allow for us to really get to know both Darlington and Alex, and both are pretty terrific characters.

Alex in particular is our heroine, and she's a fascinating window into the class conflict at heart of this story.  The rich kids playing with magic are using it to stay ahead of everyone else, to continue to grow the large gap between the upper and lower classes, and are willing to exploit those lower classes for their rituals...and their own pleasures.  And Alex was one of those lower classes - was part of the group the students derisively refer to as "Town" - and knows how it feels to be one of them and survive, to do anything to try and get another day going forward, and to hold on to whatever power could be earned or given for dear life.  It's what causes her to be so desperate to fit in with Lethe, to try and make it through a school she totally isn't qualified for, so that she can stay in this class despite her not belonging, to be "normal."  But as she investigates the death of Tara, another girl from the Town who more and more investigation shows was not quite dissimilar to Alex, Alex finds that she can't quite bring herself to even want to fit in with the rest of the rich kids at Yale, and that she can't let the Town part of herself go.  And Alex's attitude of insane recklessness makes this realization lead her to more and more desperate actions, that carry the story really well.

The rest of the cast tends to work really well too - especially Darlington, Alex's mentor at Lethe (her "Vergil") whose background is less upper class than Alex would have guessed and is a lot more sympathetic than he seems at first glance - a boy who grew up wanting desperately for the mysteries of magic to be true and discoverable and who truly believes in the Lethe cause of guiding the rituals to safe conclusions.  His feelings towards Alex are therefore less patronizing - at least they become so as he learns more about her, and his segments work really well (one caveat below) as a result.  Then there's the police officer liaison who hates the rich kids but takes the money for his side job assisting Lethe in covering it up because he needs it, the researcher girl who wants merely to help, as well as Alex's roommates, who are not actually in on the magic secrets of Yale, but find themselves caught in the dangers of it anyhow.  It's a really great cast for the most part, and I'm ignoring some interesting characters here.

I should point out that while the plot has a natural and strong emphasis on using its magic setting to set up a clear dichotomy on the matter of class, it also does so to a lesser extent on gender as well - more and more often as the story goes on does Alex find women, like Tara and others, thrown aside by people in power for their own pleasures, and she fights to ensure there is some justice done for them.  But it's not just the men perpetuating these acts, to Alex's horror, and more than a few women are complicit as well.  It's a secondary theme, not as strongly dealt with as the first - it comes up essentially midway through the book and then in the ending - but it's well done.

All of this is in service of a plot that's essentially a combined modern fantasy and mystery story, which works for the most part well thanks to its great characters and themes, although not so well as an actual mystery.  As I kind of hinted above, part of the mystery is rooted in Darlington's disappearance and actions he was taking prior to that disappearance, but we have Darlington's own perspective of those times, and it doesn't make any sense that the mystery actions that are later revealed are never thought about by Darlington himself despite Alex finding them to be pretty major later int he story.  It just doesn't work.  Similarly, the ending to the mystery involves one twist that the reader will probably have expected for a while if they're at all genre savvy - but that twist comes right after another one, and its explanation comes seemingly entirely from thin air - I've reread the parts of the book in question and no, the explanation for the reveal is seemingly never set up anywhere I could tell.

Spoilers in ROT13 for the ending of the book - so don't read if you haven't read the book yet:
Nal ernqre jvgu nal rkcrevrapr jvgu fgbevrf jvyy crt gur grnpure Oryonyz nf zber guna fur frrzf sebz gur ortvaavat: ure pyrne vagrerfg va Nyrk qrfcvgr univat ab frrzvat pbaarpgvba gb gur Ubhfrf vf n qrnq tvirnjnl, rfcrpvnyyl nf ab bgure cebsrffbef ner rire zragvbarq be fubj hc va gur fgbel.  Fb vg'f abg fhecevfvat gung fur'f hygvzngryl gur znwbe nagntbavfg.  Gung'f svar, bxnl abg n ceboyrz.

Jung qbrfa'g jbex ubjrire vf gur erirny gung Oryonyz vf npghnyyl QNVFL, gur tvey xvyyrq va gur 1850f, jub jnf frpergyl yvxr Nyrk, n jurryjnyxre jub pbhyq frr naq hfr Tenlf, naq unf orra hfvat gur obql bs ure znvq fvapr gung gvzr, jvgu gur obql orvat fhfgnvarq ol Oryonyz pbafhzvat fbhyf bs tveyf bire gur ynfg 150+ lrnef - jvgu Nyrk orvat ure arkg gnetrg.  Vg'f n erirny gung pbzrf bhg bs abjurer - V'ir ernq gur cnffntrf va dhrfgvba n srj gvzrf, naq va ab cynpr vf vg rire uvagrq gung V pna svaq gung Qnvfl vf noyr gb frr Tenlf be vf yvxr Nyrk va nal jnl.  Vg whfg srryf enaqbz naq bhg bs gur oyhr, rfcrpvnyyl nf vg pbzrf evtug nsgre gur erirny gung gur Qrna xvyyrq Gnen sbe gur fnxr bs gelvat gb perngr n arj arkhf.

Vg srryf vaperqvoyl enaqbz, naq n tbbq zlfgrel vf bar va juvpu gur pyhrf ner gurer nyy nybat, fb gung rira vs gur ernqre pna'g thrff vg orsberunaq, gurl pna tb onpx naq svther bhg nyy gur pyhrf gurl zvffrq jura gur erirny bpphef.  Urer gubfr pyhrf qba'g frrz gb rkvfg?  Vg'f n ovg bs n ceboyrz jura lbh guvax nobhg gur obbx gbb pybfryl.

  Overall though, Ninth House is an excellent novel and well recommended for readers looking for an interesting story with strong characters and an interesting exploration of how the rich exploit the lower classes, in this case through the use of magic, with all others in their way, especially women, feeling the costs.  The book ends with a potential tease for a sequel, which if it comes, I will be there for.
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