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lightreads) wrote2023-02-25 11:15 am
lightreads) wrote2023-02-25 11:15 am
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Ninth House and Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo
Ninth House and Hell Bent
3-4/5. Alex, who has seen ghosts all her life, is recruited out of the hospital bed where she is recovering from an event that killed her friends to go to Yale and serve in a secret society that watches over all the other secret societies that practice magic.
Real mixed feelings about these. When I was reading them, I loved a lot of the experience – the literal brutality and viscera of the magic, the repeated themes of struggling against the legacy of magic which has been mostly used to reenforce privilege, the strong sense of place, the way Alex’s trauma spun her life out of control and made her into a victim and also a predator. But then I’d stop reading and I’d mull a bit and go but wait . . . Alex is a person of color . . . who is experiencing Yale as an overwhelmingly white place which is pretty fucking weird in and of itself because elite educational institutions are really not overwhelmingly white these days – I mean mine sure weren't and some five second googling reveals that Yale definitely isn't – and isn’t it a bit uh-huh that the one black guy is . . . a cop? And I’d mull a little bit more and I’d think, wait so she was a drug user for like seven years and then apparently went cold turkey and now never thinks about using again ever? Sure, that’s totally how that works. And then I’d think, You know . . . that seemed to be deep and interesting when I read it, but you know now I’m not so sure? It seems to be shallowing upon consideration, not deepening?
So, an enjoyable experience (for values of, you know, *points downward*) but I think I will approach the next book with a bit more distance and a bit less face-first enthusiasm.
Content notes: Hoo boy. Gore, violence, murder, attempted and accomplished sexual assault of various sorts, underage sexual exploitation, consensual and nonconsensual drug use, mind control, I’m sure I’m forgetting things. This book must have been hell to market. I’m surprised they let her do it without an open pseud. Considering she’s written YA to date and this is about a girl going to college, it had to be hard to figure out how to pitch this so younger teens wouldn’t automatically pick it up, because wow, most of them should not.
3-4/5. Alex, who has seen ghosts all her life, is recruited out of the hospital bed where she is recovering from an event that killed her friends to go to Yale and serve in a secret society that watches over all the other secret societies that practice magic.
Real mixed feelings about these. When I was reading them, I loved a lot of the experience – the literal brutality and viscera of the magic, the repeated themes of struggling against the legacy of magic which has been mostly used to reenforce privilege, the strong sense of place, the way Alex’s trauma spun her life out of control and made her into a victim and also a predator. But then I’d stop reading and I’d mull a bit and go but wait . . . Alex is a person of color . . . who is experiencing Yale as an overwhelmingly white place which is pretty fucking weird in and of itself because elite educational institutions are really not overwhelmingly white these days – I mean mine sure weren't and some five second googling reveals that Yale definitely isn't – and isn’t it a bit uh-huh that the one black guy is . . . a cop? And I’d mull a little bit more and I’d think, wait so she was a drug user for like seven years and then apparently went cold turkey and now never thinks about using again ever? Sure, that’s totally how that works. And then I’d think, You know . . . that seemed to be deep and interesting when I read it, but you know now I’m not so sure? It seems to be shallowing upon consideration, not deepening?
So, an enjoyable experience (for values of, you know, *points downward*) but I think I will approach the next book with a bit more distance and a bit less face-first enthusiasm.
Content notes: Hoo boy. Gore, violence, murder, attempted and accomplished sexual assault of various sorts, underage sexual exploitation, consensual and nonconsensual drug use, mind control, I’m sure I’m forgetting things. This book must have been hell to market. I’m surprised they let her do it without an open pseud. Considering she’s written YA to date and this is about a girl going to college, it had to be hard to figure out how to pitch this so younger teens wouldn’t automatically pick it up, because wow, most of them should not.
no subject
The thing I thought was so weird and didn't ring true -- which lines up with what you thought was so weird -- was that it read to me like there were about a hundred people at Yale. Like, Yale is thousands of people! You do not have to be tied to the hundred-person legacy rich white people social circle! That exists, sure! But there are literally hundreds of other things you can do, hundreds of other social circles you can move in! It sort of vaguely makes sense as a plot MacGuffin that Alex has to hang around the legacy white people social circle, but her totally-different roommates seem to be stuck in that too, which is really WTF.
It seems to be shallowing upon consideration, not deepening?
Yeah -- I haven't picked up the second book yet, even though I thought I loved the first book a lot when I first finished it, and this is why.
no subject
Yes, there's a reason that people can so easily reinvent themselves when going to college -- you can find any kind of people you want and make yourself fit them. Which is not at all Alex's goal, but still.
The second book is interesting, though the entire point of it is rescuing Darlington which, I'm gonna be real here, I'm not 100% sure why she cares so much about him, because I didn't.
no subject
Heh - I empathize with this thought, I picked up Ninth House in my *30s*, on the basis of "Six of Crows was great!" and wow, I was not prepared for the gore and horror.
I think this varies depending on where you're coming from and the makeup of your social/academic circles on campus. IIRC, Alex is from LA, so I can see her finding Yale overwhelmingly white in comparison to the environment she grew up in, especially since she's hanging around rich legacy kids. My experience was that Yale felt overwhelmingly white, in comparison to where I grew up. E.g. I was the only undergrad POC in my entire department. There was one POC grad student, and all the faculty were white.
no subject
Yeah, it's a good point about context (and the faculty, mine certainly was mostly white IIRC). And it's true -- I also went from California to not that far from Yale, with a long sojourn in between, and yes the difference is noticeable.