Alex Stern (Literature)

"All you children playing with fire, looking surprised when the house burns down."

— Detective Turner

Alex Stern is an adult dark fantasy novel series by Leigh Bardugo. Ninth House is the first book of the series. The second book of the series, Hell Bent, was released in January 2023.

The book follows unlikely Yale University freshman, Galaxy "Alex" Stern, a homicide survivor and high school dropout who can see ghosts, known as greys. At the university, she is introduced to the eight Houses of the Veil, secret societies that leverage dark occult magic and rituals for the gain of students and alumni.

Alex's full-ride is contingent on her joining Lethe, the ninth house, responsible for monitoring the other houses and containing their power. The story weaves between timeframes: the fall, where Alex arrives at Yale and learns her duties as a member of Lethe, and the winter, as she investigates a murder and its possible connection to the Houses.

The book is Bardugo's first adult novel and the content is considerably darker than Bardugo’s previous works. The use of trigger warnings is advised.

This series provides examples of:

Accidental Misnaming: Throughout the book, Belbalm calls Alex "Alexandra." Alex herself never bothers to correct her until the end. It's actually a subtle hint that Belbalm doesn't have Alex's best interest in mind, since she could have easily found that her name is Galaxy in her records.
Artistic License – History:
- Manuscript in real life is very elite and has extremely powerful alumni. However, it’s not traditionally part of the Ancient Eight.
- Dawes is writing a paper on Mycenaean cults’ influence on tarot. It wasn’t until Heinrich Schliemann, 1868, discovered archaeological evidence of Mycenaean civilization that modern peoples knew anything of it at all. Their language wasn’t translated until the 1950s, with our knowledge of their cult practices slowly developing. Tarot cards were first developed in the 1400s, with the most famous version created in 1909. How much could Mycenaean civilization possibly influence tarot cards?
Badass Bookworm: In a world where studying the arcane enough gives you magic, there’s a few of these. These most notable is Darlington, an ace who can handle the houses with ease.
Betrayal by Inaction: How Alex views her reaction to Darlington being sucked into the portal. Darlington also notes this in his final thoughts before he disappears.
Black-and-Grey Morality: Alex and Darlington’s work is essentially enabling the elite to use dangerous magic for their own gain, and reining them in when they go too far. Additionally, Alex and Hellie murdered their abusive boyfriend and his associates. However, the villains are very evil. Sandow murdered a girl for money and tried to murder Darlington to cover his tracks. Belbalm has been eating girls’ souls for over a hundred years in order to avoid aging.
Blessed with Suck: While it does have its uses, a large reason why Alex’s life has been so difficult is because she can see ghosts.
Call to Adventure: Interesting parallel for Alex and Darlington. For both, Sandow came to their hospital bed and offered they join Lethe. Despite the fact that it’s a magical organization, Alex saw it as an opportunity for normalcy as she could use it to escape her drug-dealing past. Darlington saw it as his entrance into the world of magic.
Can't Catch Up: Alex is sharp, quick-thinking, and has clear street smarts as a result of her past. However, despite her wit and attempt to pick all easy classes, "being intelligent" is not the same as "having the skills needed to succeed in college" (writing essays, for example, needs to be taught; Alex doesn't know how). She also happens to be at Yale. As expected, she very quickly ends up on academic probation.
Cast from Hit Points: Magic takes a toll on the body, and is too dangerous to do for the long term. Thus, magic is only cast by a rotating group of college students.
- Orozcerio/Hiram’s Bullet, the potion to see Greys, is so toxic that each time you ingest it you risk liver failure. Darlington, in his narration, wonders if this is the time his liver will finally give out.
Character Title: The series title, named after its protagonist Alex Stern.
Crapsack World: Magic is controlled by the elite members of Yale for the gain of students and alumni. Magic wielders are entitled college students who primarily use it for showing off, getting high, and attempted (and successful) rape. Alumni use magic to predict the stock market (by torturing an innocent mental patient), find creative inspiration, and create binding legal agreements. In addition, ghosts are sad and sometimes violent hangers-on who follow the living around, wishing they were alive.
The Cynic: Given Alex’s backstory, she’s pretty jaded. This turns out to be a bit of an asset, as she’s used to the criminal element and can look past the pretension at Yale.
Darker and Edgier: Leigh Bardugo's previous works could be pretty dark to begin with. But Ninth House makes what were simply strong implications in the Grishaverse explicit and makes the setting far bleaker.
- Also, darker takes on the myths or history it pulls from. For example, the story starts with Skull and Bones performing haruspicy on an unsuspecting mental patient. In reality, haruspicy was performed by Etruscans and then Romans. Despite the stereotype Romans were bloodthirsty, Romans only preformed haruspicy on sacrificed animals, not human beings.
Dark Secret: Hellie possessed Alex and they murdered their abusers, including Alex’s boyfriend Len. Also, Darlington killed his grandfather at his grandfather’s behest, and that’s why he was able to turn into a demon.
Dead Person Conversation: With Betram Boyce North.
Dean Bitterman: Dean Sandow and Professor Belbalm.
Dragged Off to Hell: Poor Darlington.
Dysfunction Junction: Despite the Lethe requirement that all members have no prior history of mental illness, everyone in the main cast is pretty messed up.
- Alex probably takes the cake. At Yale, she has a major chip on her shoulder, for feeling like she doesn’t belong at Yale and isn’t qualified. Her past before Yale includes an absent, neglectful mother, sexual assault, grooming, abuse, and drug addiction. On top of that, it is ambiguous how much control she had over Hellie when they murdered their abusers.
- Darlington, despite his perfectionism (or maybe symptomatically), is quite dysfunctional. He’s well-liked because he’s always putting on a persona, and finds people very exhausting. He holds everyone at arm's length. He grew up very alone, unwanted by his parents, spending his time with his cold grandfather and wandering a decaying mansion. His obsession with magic is likely searching for meaning after his empty childhood, but he’s willing to risk death just to feel special. He’s an adrenaline junkie, carelessly putting his life at risk to pursue magic, to give some sort of meaning in his life. And on top of that, it’s implied that he helped kill his grandfather.
- Pamela is so awkward she can barely hold conversations with others. While actually kind and well-intentioned, it makes functioning in the college environment very difficult for her.
- On the minor end of the spectrum, Turner is resentful of Yale and the secret societies, and initially quite hostile to the institution in general.
- Dean Sandow is bitter and angry that his wife left him after going through her breast cancer with her. His divorce left him with nothing, and he hasn’t published in a while, so he’s desperate and ruthless. He murders his mentee, Darlington, and Tara, his drug dealer, for money
Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Blake Keeley. A particularly heinous example. Blake Keeley is an Abercrombie model. He’s also a star lacrosse player, who got away with violence on the field because Yale wanted him on the team. He uses a magical drug, Merity, to rape and humiliate Mercy.
- What makes Blake Keeley so disturbing is he’s very realistic. Remove the magic from it and it unfortunately sounds like a news story. An MVP who avoids consequences because it’s better for the team uses his power to hurt women. On top of that, Blake Keeley has magic that can give him total control over someone.
Fantastic Drug: Several examples:
- Basso Belladonna, which is like magical Adderall.
- Merity, which makes the user completely subservient (and is used as a magical roofie).
- The fog at the Manuscript party, which serves as a powerful hallucinogen.
Fantastic Noir: Ninth House has both the occult as well as a lot of elements of Noir fiction, despite being set in an atypical setting (a college campus) for Noir. These elements include:
- At the center of the story is a mystery, with many twists and turns, frequent flashbacks, and a Double Cross.
- Alex has a lot in common with a Hardboiled Detective, being a tough, cynical character with a lot of street smarts who solves the case with persistence rather than Holmesian insight.
- Film Noir typically has the system and the law either apathetic or working against the protagonists. In the series, the Law lacks the knowledge to convict any magic wrong-doing. The school-board, which do have the knowledge to do something, is more concerned with covering up than actually stopping wrong-doing. The main authority figure, Sandow, is behind the murder.
- Despite being way cushier than the usual gangsters and lowlifes that populate a Noir flick, in some ways, the secondary characters fit the genre. The vast majority of Yale students in the societies that Alex runs into are generally self-serving, caring more about prestige and protecting their own and the organization’s reputation than the moral ramifications of what they’re doing.
- The main characters are all anti-heroes. Alex is between Type II and Type III of the Sliding Scale Of Anti-Heroes. Dawes is so awkward and shy she’s more a Classical Anti-Hero. The closest to a typical hero, Darlington, is a Broken Ace, and is out of commission. The female and male lead also have Belligerent Sexual Tension like in typical Noir.
Friendless Background: Alex is a bit rough around the edges at the beginning of the series, given her only friend prior was Hellie.
Glamour: House Manuscript’s magic of choice.
Hellgate: What Darlington got lost in.
I See Dead People: Alex’s skill. Later revealed to be shared by Professor Belbalm and the women whose souls she devoured.
Ivy League for Everyone: Justified as Alex's powers are highly sought-after, which is what leads to her invitation to come to Yale. It doesn't work as seamless as expected when she does have trouble keeping up with the academic rigor and ends up on academic probation.
Life Drinker: Belbalm is immortal because she consumes girls’ souls.
Like Reality, Unless Noted: Yale is exactly like real Yale, except the secret societies, which exist in real life, can use magic. All the references to art, history, architecture, are things that exist in real life.
The Load: Subverted Trope for Alex. Due to elitism, many characters think Alex can’t keep up with the job, not being Ivy League material. Alex worries she’ll be a load, and Darlington does too before he gets to know her. Sandow expected her to be this, which is why he picked her. Subverted, as Alex is the one who catches Sandow. She’s also the one who finally kills Belbalm, who’d been murdering girls for over a hundred years without Lethe catching her.
Magical Incantation: Used in book. Ghosts can be kept at bay simply by death words.
Magnetic Medium: Ghosts threatening and assaulting Alex caused of most of her trauma.
Mutual Envy: Darlington is initially cold to Alex because he’s jealous of her powers. Alex is jealous of Darlington’s academic skills and what she perceived as a charmed life. In reality, Darlington also had a pretty unpleasant life before Yale, and Alex’s powers are more like a curse.
Master-Apprentice Chain: How Lethe trains its new members, with the senior Virgil training the freshman Dante.
Noble Demon: Literal version of the trope, as he’s not the villain. After Darlington goes missing, Alex is in hot water as she doesn’t have enough training to do her job, and Sandow, her mentor, is a murderer seeking to hide his crimes. Darlington the demon is actually helping Alex. During her first prognostication without Darlington, Alex loses focus and the ghosts become a threat. Suddenly, there’s a large booming noise that scares Alex and seems to be a bigger threat than the ghosts. Later, she realizes it must have been Darlington the Demon that made the noise. While it scared her, it also scared away the ghosts that were threatening her. Upon rereading, it’s clear he was protecting her.
No Celebrities Were Harmed: Subverted. Actual famous figures are mentioned, and in the same Houses they are in real life.
Occult Detective: A college club version. One of Lethe’s purposes is to keep other magic clubs in line, and that involves investigating them.
Old, Dark House: Black Elm, Darlington's beloved family estate.
Powered by a Forsaken Child: The only Houses with reliable, powerful magic are the landed societies on top of a nexus. Darlington found a trail of murdered girls were where the nexuses were. Sandow murdered Tara because he Sandow believed the nexuses were created by a murder on a prepared site. He was wrong. The nexuses were created by Daisy/Belbalm, consuming a human soul. The consumed souls can’t move on and exist within Belbalm, their murderer.
Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: Alex gives one to Professor Belbalm just before the latter’s death. Bonus points for Alex finally correcting her Accidental Misnaming.
Alex: My name is Galaxy, you fucking glutton!
Ritual Magic: Big part of series. Magic exists, but can only be accessed by complex, different rituals.
Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
- Alex invites Hellie's ghost into her and with their combined strength she brutally murders their abuser and the other junkies they were living with.
- Professor Belbalm's victims get this in the book's climax.
School Clubs Are Serious Business: Could be the alternate title of this book.
Shown Their Work: Part of what makes this book interesting is the wide variety of references that the author makes, which really evokes the Yale environment.
- The lit references are very frequent, and have the most depth, which makes sense, given Bardugo is an English Major.
- Discusses several styles of architecture, including Moorish architecture, Greek pediment, Federalist Architecture, Modernist (including Neutra), and Gothic Revival
- She weaves in real local Yale and New Haven history with magic. For example, Jennie Cramer was a real murdered woman, as was Bathsheba Smith.
- Many of the magic references real figures or beliefs, such as Paracelsus or Haruspicy.
Smart People Know Latin:
- Played With. Skull & Bones uses Dutch during their rituals, as it is the language of commerce (and because too many students are fluent in Greek and Latin).
- Darlington speaks multiple languages, including Latin, and remarks on Alex not knowing it (she later does translate something, with an internal Take That! to Darlington in her head).
Split Timelines Plot: The story has three: fall, when Darlington was present, winter, and spring.
- In practice, only two are split: the book begins with an In Medias Res prologue set in Early Spring, and then goes back and alternates between the Fall and Winter plotlines until they reach their logical endpoints (Darlington's disappearance, and the events immediately preceding the prologue, respectively), from which it continues with the Spring plotline uninterrupted.
Stranger in a Strange School: Alex initially feels this way in the magical secret societies of Yale. She eventually proves she belongs.
Street Smart: Alex is sharp, quick-thinking, and has clear street smarts as a result of her past. However, despite her wit and attempt to pick all easy classes, "being intelligent" is not the same as "having the skills needed to succeed in college" (writing essays, for example, needs to be taught; Alex doesn't know how). She also happens to be at Yale. As expected, she very quickly ends up on academic probation.
Tattooed Crook: Likely, this trope was the reason Alex covered her tattoos, fearful that this was the image she’d present.
Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Alex and everyone she works with, initially. Alex begins with a bit of a chip in her shoulder, anxious because she feels like she doesn’t belong, and thinks others are doubting whether she’s worthy of being Dante.
- Alex and Darlington initially hit it off poorly. Alex starts at Yale angry and wary. Darlington is annoyed she prevented him from choosing his own Dante, which he was greatly looking forward to, and he’s a little jealous of her ability, when he’s longed for magic his whole life.
- Alex and Pamela are initially not very comfortable working together. Pamela is a very awkward person, and Alex felt like Pamela preferred Darlington.
- Alex and Turner probably exhibit this trope the most. Turner resents what he sees as Yale students able to interfere with police work because they’re part of the elite. He also resents that they mess around with dangerous magic and get themselves hurt. Alex represents this to Turner initially, and her initial defensiveness doesn’t help.
Tragic Monster: The demon is actually Darlington, who was forced to turn into one when Sandow tried to kill him.
Trauma Conga Line: Both Alex and Darlington go through this, to varying degrees.
- For Alex, as a child, she lived with with a strange and absent mother, experienced food insecurity, all while seeing quite frankly terrifying ghosts no one else could see. CPS is called on her. She was sexually assaulted, then bullied because of it. She escapes the bullying and ghosts by using drugs and joining up with a drug dealer, who grooms and abuses her. She finally finds a friend and confidante, Hellie, only for Hellie to overdose. Hellie then possesses her, and it’s unclear how much control Alex has, and murders their abusers. This quote really captures how badly Alex has had it:
  The supply of food in her backpack was like a security blanket. If this all ended, if it all got taken away, she wouldn’t go hungry for at least a couple of days.
- While not quite as dramatic, Darlington had it rather rough, too. His parents only had him so he’s raised by his rather harsh grandfather. When he’s 15, his grandfather gets sick. His parents plan to keep the grandfather alive (while he’s in a coma), so they can control the estate and sell the house, which should go to Danny in the will. Thus, he has to mercy-kill his grandfather. Then, his parents try to manipulate him to sell the house, and when he refuses, they leave him alone in an empty house with no money. Eventually, power and heat goes out for six weeks, but he works odd-jobs and barely gets by. He gets obsessed with magic because he’s lonely. He risks death and drinks Orozcerio to see ghosts, and when he wakes up in the hospital after bleeding out of his eyes, Sandow offers him Lethe. Then, four years after that experience, the sole adult who supposedly cares about him tries to kill him to make some money. Darlington survives by turning into a demon, but is trapped in Hell.
The Underworld: Alex makes a trip here to see North.
Too Clever by Half: While he’s usually practical and prepared, Darlington’s downfall has shades of this. Darlington notices all the nexuses are where women died. The first thing Darlington does is tell Sandow, and only tells Sandow, wanting to show how smart he is. It’s very important info that Societies would pay a lot of money for. He naively doesn’t realize 1) what kind of man Sandow is and 2) if Sandow decides to use that info, Darlington is the only one who could implicate him in the crime. Thus, if Sandow decides to use that info, he’ll have to eliminate Darlington first.
- Darlington is jaded in regards to the societies, and is very aware of how people can act with too much power. However, he views Lethe with very rose-colored glasses, and it likely didn’t occur to him that not everyone in Lethe is as honorable as he is.
Unfinished Business: The reason the Bridegroom wants to work with Alex.
Wizarding School: Yale, to some extent. But only for the wealthiest, best-connected students.