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Ninth House

"He shouldn't look.  He knew that.  You should never look into the face of the uncanny, but had he ever been able to turn away?  No, he'd courted it, begged for it.  He had to know.  He wanted to know everything."

Galaxy Stern isn't like other girls.  She sees ghosts.  Dead souls that linger on this side of the veil longing for a sense of what it is to be alive again.  Seeing ghosts makes life difficult for Alex.  So difficult that she runs away as a teenager, searching for ways to escape and numb her mind.  It's not much of a life and Alex wakes up one day in a hospital bed to find out all of her friends have been brutally murdered and the dean of Yale has a tempting offer.  A chance at a new, normal life.  All she has to do is use her ability to see ghosts to work for Lethe society, a Yale organization that keeps the other societies in check.  In return she can be a Yale student.  She can start a new life.  Alex jumps at the chance.  Her basic requirement is to keep on eye on the ghosts, or greys, as the societies call them, during rituals.  Seems easy enough until her friend disappears, a town girl is murdered, and illegal magical drugs are being circulated around campus.  There's also a very old ghost on a mission that won't leave Alex alone.  She quickly discovers that she can't just fake it through this new Yale life and maybe that's an OK thing.

Ninth House is the first book in Leigh Bardugo's new Alex Stern series.  It was very different than both the Shadow and Bone Trilogy and the Six of Crows Duology, which at first made me very upset.  I loved those books and I wanted more.  I didn't think I wanted to read about some girl going to Yale.  I was wrong.

While this book differs from Bardugo's others, it is still an excellent fantasy novel.  It's set in modern day, which I loved.  Sometimes it's fun to skip the world building and just tweak the one we live in.  It was also kind of fun to dive into the secret societies at Yale.  Makes a girl wonder.

Galaxy Stern is a great character.  She's dark and angry and rightfully so.  She's had a tough life.  She carries a lot of guilt and she desperately wants to try to pretend to be normal.  But as her new life at Yale unfolds she realizes that she needs to embrace the girl she is deep down inside.  And by the end she's completely owning it.  I cannot wait for the next book so we can see more of that newly confident girl!

The ending of this book was the best because it left me wanting so much more.  So many questions unanswered.  So much more magic to be discovered.  I won't say any more.  Spoilers.  I'll just sit here anxiously awaiting a release date!

Side note...if you haven't read anything by Bardugo you are just fine to read Ninth House.  It doesn't have anything to do with them or the world's they are set in at all.  
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