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Ninth House

Written by: Leigh Bardugo
Narrated by: Lauren Fortgang,Michael David Axtell
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Publisher's Summary

From the author of Shadow and Bone, now a hit NETFLIX series.

The smash New York Times bestseller from Leigh Bardugo, a mesmerizing tale of power, privilege, and dark magic set among the Ivy League elite. This program includes a bonus conversation with the author.

"The best fantasy novel I’ve read in years, because it’s about real people.... Impossible to put down." —Stephen King

"Bardugo’s latest is a must-listen, introducing a haunting, Yale-based occult world populated with gloriously complicated characters.... A win-win-win, honestly." —Paste, best audiobooks of 2019

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. In fact, by age twenty, 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 prestigious universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?

Still searching for answers, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. Their eight windowless “tombs” are the well-known haunts of the rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street’s biggest players. But their occult activities are more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive. They tamper with forbidden magic. They raise the dead. And, sometimes, they prey on the living. A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books

A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books.

©2019 Leigh Bardugo (P)2019 Macmillan Audio

What the critics say

2019, Goodreads Choice Awards, Winner

2019, NPR Best Book of the Year, Long-listed

2019, Amazon.com Best Books of the Year, Long-listed

2019, NYPL Best Books of the Year, Long-listed

2020, Locus Awards, Short-listed

"Leigh Bardugo's Ninth House rocked my world. I could not get enough of sinewy, ghost-haunted Alex Stern, a heroine for the ages. With a bruised heart and bleeding knuckles, she risks death and damnation - again and again - for the people she cares about. I was cheering her on the whole way: from the first brilliant sentence of this book to the last. More, please, Ms. Bardugo." (Joe Hill, New York Times best-selling author of NOS4A2)

"Ninth House is the best thing I’ve read in a long time. There’s so much magic here that you'll begin to feel it seeping into the room around you as you read, and characters so real you ’ll practically hear their voices in your ear. Leigh Bardugo has written a book so delicious, so twisty, and so immersive I wouldn’t blame you for taking the day off to finish it." (Kelly Link, author of Magic for Beginners and Get in Trouble)

What listeners say about Ninth House

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Good Narration. Story is just a mess of half ideas

Tldr: it can't decide on it's story or tone. nor what it's even trying to say about power and higher education structures. Just messy.
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The performance is decent. But a few random audio level issues in a bunch of chapter transitions.
It started off with promise, the characters and settings are interesting initially. And then somewhere along the lines it just stopped developing anything properly. Information, characters, and absolutely intense events are just thrown at you for shock and then never really go further.
And the entire story happens in the end and it's VERY random and out of left field. Like none of what you were shown before mattered. You could skip from chapter 4 straight to the last 2 chapters and absolutely NOTHING would change about the story.

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars

Invested in the characters.

I am always intrigued when a popular YA author decides to leave their comfort zone and expand to a new audience. It is a competitive genre, with a very demanding fan base. How is this author going to adapt? Will they connect with me, someone beyond this YA target market?

As for the second question, Bardugo did a fantastic job! She created a couple of characters: Alex and Darlington, that were exceptionally developed. I felt a connection to both. From my point of view, an author’s ability to create tangible characters is paramount, if I don’t connect with the characters, why should I care? Bardugo’s characters were layered, developed and tangible to me.

As for my first question, I felt that Bardugo played it safe. With a university backdrop and a magical element, hell, the whole story revolves around magic, Bardugo surely will not isolate her existing fan base. She has even given the young girls a heartthrob to swoon over, Darlington. Ninth House really isn’t that much of a step away from YA Fantasy. That being said, the whole thing worked for me, in some ways it brought me back to my own university days, however, mine completely lacked the magic found at Yale.

Ninth House is without a doubt the first in a series. Would I continue on with the series? Hell yeah! Bardugo has me invested in her characters now. Her plot development, with all of its twists and turns, worked well for me.

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superb!

I have been a fan of Bardugo and loved this new direction and the fantastic narration. The characters are gritty, imperfect, and real.
If you liked this you will love "Rivers of London" series by Ben Aaronovitch.

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The author is one I will be following now.

Good entertainment. Good entertainment. Good entertainment. Good entertainment. Good entertainment. Good entertainment. Good entertainment. 15 words required with 7 unique words... really

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  • Overall
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spooky

loved the narration and found it kept me engaged so well done 👏 ✔️

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Loved

I read in it one sitting. Being familiar with the locations added another depth. Thoroughly enjoyed.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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It’s okay

The idea is super interesting, but the main character gives ‘I’m not like other girls, I’m different’ energy. Just another ‘drab brown hair yet somehow doesn’t know she’s beautiful’.

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  • Overall
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A very unique and engrossing story

Ghosts, demons, magical secret societies - what is not to love. I didn’t expect this story to be as dark or as entertaining as it was. Ready to jump into book two!

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  • Overall
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So good I listened to it twice!

Love this book so much! I listened to it a couple of years ago and was desperate for the sequel when I was finished! The sequel just came out a week ago, so I re-listened to Ninth House to remember the details of the plot and enjoyed it just as much!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing new concept, and weirdly dark!

This book was incredible. I can't believe it took me so long to find it. The characters, the story, the ghosts! Its a vibrant story, with alot more gore than I expected.

10/10!

Can't wait for the sequel to come out!!!

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  • Tavan Hiestand
  • 2019-11-21

UTTERLY DISAPPOINTED.

I can't even finish this audiobook. I want to...it was considered the most highly anticipated book of the year! But, for me...it's a flop. I wish the author would have just told the story. Instead it begins in the middle...then beginning..and back and forth from there. It was like taking something great and tossing it into a blender.

The narrator did a good job...it really was the style of writing that ruined the book for me.

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58 people found this helpful

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  • readbot5000
  • 2019-12-10

This Book: Totally Worth it

A number of reviewers on this site have lambasted the book for its style of using flashbacks and tying the book together tightly. I admit, it takes a chapter or two to get used to the style, but this is the beginning of a series, and it is worth the time and effort to get into the story. This is a very adult book, think Harry Potter with a lot more Voldemort and frat boys. The world Bardugo created is very solid and fully fleshed out. For those of you who are looking for answers to the mystery she has built, be patient, the pay off is coming, and well worth the wait. Enjoy!

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47 people found this helpful

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  • Catherine
  • 2019-10-25

Flashbacks

There are to many flashbacks in this story. I would just start to get into the story and bam another flashback.

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43 people found this helpful

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  • angelaz
  • 2019-10-18

Excellent magical world building

My favorite supernatural reading is, paradoxically, stuff that hews closest to real life. So I’d say this series is a bit more like Harry Potter’s world or Charlaine Harris’s Sookie series than, say, The Magicians—which hauls the reader off into a complete fantasy world. I like feeling of real life being lit up, like awesome things are just around the corner, rather than feeling like I escaped completely. Being given a scholarship to Yale when you’re a poor outsider IS a kind of magic, and this novel shows it to be awe-full and even dangerous. Wonderful characters, a fine story arc leave me looking for the next in the series. And the readers were perfect!

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29 people found this helpful

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  • Mary
  • 2019-10-20

Overwrought

I've so loved all the books in the Grishaverse and was excited to dive into this new offering. Unfortunately, I found the story tiresome, the prose as unnecessary and overwrought as possible, the characters difficult to care about, the backstories trite, and the lead up for what happened to Darlington took so friggin long that I absolutely did not care anymore. Every flashback ruined the pacing and it was difficult to determine when things happened (is Alex only 12 or 15 most of the time?) and the powers of the different houses were the epitome of narrative convenience.
I found this book to be a slog and I feel bad about that. But, I would absolutely not recommend it to someone unfamiliar with the author. I would recommend the Grisha books instead.

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  • Aly P
  • 2019-10-16

Good plot but confusing

I try so hard to love Leigh Bardugo's books like everyone else, but something about the writing confuses me and I struggle to like the characters. It seems like the characters are made to be deeply flawed and yet you root for them, which is fine, but I don't get the redeeming qualities and end up not caring about them or whether they die. The time jumping back and forth was kind of rough for me and I think if I read it again I might understand more.
I did love the way magic was intertwined with reality. It was smooth and believable and I want to tell fantasy authors, "See? You can write fantasy that takes place in our modern world and it works!" The narrators for the audiobook were nice to listen to and I did appreciate getting a male narrator for Darlington's point of view. I wish we learned more about his and Alex's relationship and what happened to him. Maybe next book will be easier to understand with the foundation already being laid.

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  • C&D
  • 2019-10-18

Fantastic adult debut!

Ninth House was everything and more than what I was expecting. It was dark, gritty, and scary in a non-traditional horror way-but in a way that reminds us that sometimes the scariest monsters are living among us, cloaked as friends, family, and acquaintances. Highly recommend, but HEED THE TRIGGER WARNINGS if you need to because it is dark.

Audio: Lauren Fortgang - She's a stunner when it comes to narrating and Ninth House was no exception. Her cadence is perfect for the mood of the book and each character has their own distinct voice.

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24 people found this helpful

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  • Bekie March
  • 2020-01-14

Timelines are not confusing

I was worried about purchasing this book as others had commented that the timeline was confusing. It really wasn’t had for me to follow and the chapters were all clearly named. Great story - magical, adventures, conspiracies and mysteries to be solved. Overall a great story.

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  • B.A. Wilson
  • 2019-11-02

Unbreak My Heart

I am wallowing in despair, because if you asked me who should be the Queen of my world, Leigh Bardugo would be on the short list, no doubt. But this has been the most frustrating Saturday ever, trying to force myself through this book. If it had been written by anyone else, I would have chosen to DNF, but I kept hanging on to try to find more redeeming qualities.

Unfortunately, this was a really difficult story for me to get engaged and stay engaged with. The characters are many and all underdeveloped, in my opinion. The storyline is tedious and convoluted, made worse by the length of the book. I spent several hours trying to convince myself that I’m the problem, but I really don’t think it was just me. All I wanted was to spend the whole day relaxing and reading an awesome book, so I brought the right attitude to the moment just didn’t somehow, in a surprise twist, manage to pick the right book.

So long story short, even though this had some moments that were really interesting, and I could see glimpses of talent and world building and complex and interesting characters, overall, it was not a win for me. Had this not been written by Bardugo, I probably would have DNFed in the first ¼ of the story, saved myself most of a Saturday, and awarded this only 1 star. The 2nd star here is for the moments of amazing writing and storytelling that do exist, even though they tend to be too few and far between.

I do strongly recommend Bardugo’s other books, to anyone who is new to this author. Definitely don’t start with this one, since it seems to be pretty polarizing, and it’s hard saying which side you will fall towards.

The narration is pretty good, very easy to understand, mildly emotional.

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  • H. Watanabe
  • 2019-11-28

Just couldn’t finish it

I’m not a big detailed reviewer but this one I felt deserved some explanation. The premise of the book sounded great so I thought I’d give it a go. The story jumps from past to present tense fairly often and I found it really distracting and hard to follow. I’ve gotten through 25% of the book and still can’t figure out what’s going on and have a hard time remembering who the various characters are and why I should care about them. *Trigger warning*
There’s a fairly detailed scene where the main character is 12, starts her period and gets raped by a ghost or something like a ghost because he is able to touch her. That was it for me. Time to return the book.

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  • Aurelie A-D
  • 2020-12-26

Awesome series first book!

I really love this introductory book into the life of Alex Stern and I can hardly wait to read book #2. Just awesome... Leigh Bardugo did it again!!

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