Another Book I Read

The Ninth House, by Leigh Bardugo, fits so seamlessly into the real world that it’s hard to tell where that world ends and the fantasy begins.  There are secret societies at Yale, everyone knows that, but are they secret because they work with magic?  Did the George Bushes, father and son, really watch a haruspex read the entrails of a living man and learn which investments to make?  You wouldn’t think so (or maybe you would, especially about Junior), but this is supposed to be the specialty of Skull and Bones.

Alex Stern can see ghosts, which in the societies are called Grays.  No one else can do this, not unless they drink a poisonous elixir that will eventually destroy their liver.  So Alex — who takes drugs to dull the effect of the Grays, who lives in poverty, who dropped out of high school — is given a scholarship to Yale.  She is invited to join Lethe House, the society that cleans up after all the others.  “No more dead hobos” is their unofficial motto.

If you let yourself think about this, of course, it’s ridiculous.  What kind of adult would let adolescents mess around with such powerful magic?  (Though you could say the same about Harry Potter and all the other young wizard books.)  Who, especially, would give that kind of power to a woman who’s spent the last few years in a drug-addled haze?  If you can suspend your disbelief, though, it’s a pretty wild ride.

I especially liked Alex (real name Galaxy), who is underestimated by nearly everyone because of her background.  When her mentor disappears and a townie is murdered, no one expects her to care very much.  But she turns out to have her own kind of morality, and she doesn’t stop investigating — no matter how dangerous it gets, or what she discovers about Yale itself.