Overall warning, this review will contain spoilers!
Leigh Bardugo, the woman that you are.
If you’re unfamiliar with Bardugo, she’s best known for her YA Six of Crows duology, along with a number of other books in the Grishaverse. In 2019, she debuted an adult novel that mixes horror, dark academia, and fantasy set on Yale’s campus. The book Ninth House was the first in the Alex Stern series, with the sequel Hell Bent following in 2023. I f*cking love these books, simply put.
Now, before I scream about these books, let me start by giving you a general overview of what this series is even about. We follow our main character, Alex Stern, as she starts her freshman year at Yale. Alex has a mysterious past, and as part of starting over at Yale, she joins Lethe, one of the secret societies on campus that oversees the rest of the societies to make sure none of them are doing things they’re not supposed to. When a murder happens on campus, Alex gets pulled into the investigation and starts to unravel this new world she’s been brought into.
Starting with Ninth House, there’s so much to unpack in this book, because although the premise is simple, Bardugo packs so much into the 450 pages. I won’t lie to you, the first 100 pages are kind of confusing as you begin to understand the world of Yale and the societies, but once you’re in… girl you’re in. Right off the bat, I loved Alex as a main character; she’s truly an icon. She stands out so much to me because, as an outsider in the world of elite colleges and secret societies, she leans into it and uses it. She’s the definition of morally gray, but I support women’s rights and wrongs, so I was rooting for her throughout the book. She’s a character who has dealt with so much trauma in her life and just wants to put her head down and try to make it through four years at Yale. Bardugo perfectly uses her mentor, Daniel “Darlington” Arlington, as a foil to Alex. He’s a rule follower, sometimes arrogant, and cares about upholding his position in Lethe. He comes from a different world than Alex, but as you get to know him through his chapters, you come to understand that he’s a lonely and misunderstood individual. The dynamic between them is delicious because she doesn’t let him catch a break. Within their first meeting, she got that man to give her $300. Hello, I’m obsessed. And then there’s Pamela Dawes, just a girl trying to write her dissertation, but she keeps getting pulled into Alex’s orbit. Alex and Dawes are such an unlikely duo, but their ever-blossoming friendship is so tender and sweet.
Bardugo did the murder mystery so perfectly because I truly had no idea who the killer was until it was revealed. It was such a useful tool because this book revolves around a lot of themes, trauma and class being big ones, and the uncovering of the mystery played right into that. The girl who dies on campus, Tara Hutchins, is considered “town” by the Yale community, but because of Alex’s past, she sees herself in Tara and feels this compulsion to find out what happened. You get so engrossed in the story uncovering the secrets of the societies and how this “town” girl was wrapped up in so much of it.
Another big part of the book is the supernatural and magic elements; Alex has the rare ability to see ghosts or “Grays,” as they’re referred to as in the book, and this ability is far from a gift. When she’s 12, she experiences something truly awful at the hands of a Gray, and that leads her down this dark path of drugs and mixing with the wrong crowd, which ultimately comes to a halt when she’s involved with a multiple-person homicide. It’s later revealed that Alex’s body was essentially overtaken by her best friend, Hellie, who died of an overdose, and together they kill these men who’ve been horrible to them for years. That’s one thing about Alex that I love, even if she goes overboard (hello murder), her heart is in the right place when she does things for the people she cares about. We come to see Alex’s growth as a character throughout the book. She works to overcome her trauma and find confidence in herself when it comes to using her power.
Bardugo is such an exquisite writer. Oftentimes, I get turned off from reading certain books because I don’t think the writing will be accessible, but that is not the case here. She’s not overly pretentious or flowery with her writing. There are so many lines I was underlining because she kept hitting the mark so perfectly. The way she wrote so descriptively about Yale and New Haven, I felt like I was there with Alex. It’s so simple yet still packs the punch you get from using big words and crazy metaphors.
Now, to talk about Hell Bent, I need to mention one other thing that happens in Ninth House, and that’s Darlington getting eaten by a Hellbeast. Basically, he goes with Alex to the basement of an old building to purge electrical energy that affects the weather when he notices a portal and gets swallowed into Hell. The end of Ninth House is Alex and Dawes deciding that they’re going to figure out how to rescue Darlington, and Hell Bent starts pretty much where we left off. One major complaint people had about Ninth House was the pacing, and Bardugo heard and said, “Hold my beer” because holy sh*t are things moving in this book.
What I love most about this book over Ninth House is that it feels like Bardugo was able to truly write whatever she wanted. The world was set up, the mystery was solved, and now she could have fun. And that’s exactly what she did. When I realized that the book didn’t entirely take place in rescuing Darlington from Hell, I was a bit worried about what else was going to happen, but Bardugo knew what she was doing. And let me tell you this book was addicting.
Truly, my favorite part of this book was getting Darlington back. He actually ends up living in his living room for the better part of the book, which is funny to think about, like damn, we get it, you love Black Elm. I also love when Hell gets explored in media. For some reason, I’ve watched a lot of shows that hint toward religious elements and it’s always interesting to me how God, the devil, Hell, etc. can be portrayed so many different ways, even when we have a book that lays it out for us (I’ve never read the Bible so I honestly have no idea what happens in it, but you get what I’m saying). Reading Bardugo’s version was fascinating because to get to Hell, you need four murders, and in the descent, they each live each others’ crime, and in the book, you’ve read two of the murders already, so getting the others was such a gag.
On top of Gray’s, we get vampires and demons in this book. The vampire reveal had me so shook; I was doing the Jim from The Office look around my living room because that was the last thing I was expecting.
And I’m sorry, but I’m a romance girl through and through, so I need Darlington and Alex to get together in book three because the tension is killing me. Like, they’re in love and you can’t convince me otherwise. She literally went to Hell twice to get his soul and reunite it with his body. HELLO, THAT’S AS ROMANTIC AS IT GETS.
If it wasn’t crystal clear, I love this series so much. Just something about it scratched an itch I didn’t know I had. I’m not sure I’ll ever get over these books, considering I’ve already re-read Ninth House because I wasn’t ready to move on. And my timing is so perfect because Bardugo just announced the title of the third and final book in the trilogy, Dead Beat, which will be released in September of 2026. No book has made me feel this way in a minute, and that’s how I know just how special these are.