CeeCee

Lovely YA storyline. Tessa, the 20 yr old MFC, is a covert princess, who loves theater, is good natured and selfless, independent & strong willed. That hooked me in from the beginning. Guy is the MMC, orphan to self-made finance mogul who never veers from his roots, strong yet sentimental and somehow finds time in his busy life to help those he's acquaintance of whether it be financially, via sound advice or a warm meal.
All the other reviews tell you about the plot so i'll just skip the recap. I will say the writing was elaborate and gave me a feeling i was actually touring the streets of Vienna, in the rafters above the Opera stage or walking the castle grounds. At some points it was almost too verbose which is ironic since the ending was so rushed my mind was left spinning. Because of that i gave it: 4.25⭐️; 0

One of my best reads this year. Well written, great character buildup and eloquent poetry on the circus settings sprinkled throughout.The imagery was extraordinary and the plot was new and refreshing despite the venue which also happened to be magical in its own right. I read the physical book while using the audiobook for a few chapters. The audio narration took me a bit to get used to his cadence.. initially i felt as if i was being shouted at until i got used to it. The distinct character accents were nice. I did find the chapter titles a bit hard to follow on the audio book vs the hardcopy so be aware of that if your an audiobook user.

Im sitting here ruminating on my book hangover. A theme within Ninth House that i enjoyed was insight on how an institution can be seen in light and dark. The good and the bad of secret societies. I love to travel and do walking tours of towns (especially when related to books) and many of the referenced locations, monuments, tombstones and secret societies exist IRL! I admit I went down many rabbit holes looking stuff up on new haven maps and such. The strong MFC and the many introspective realizations she made about herself as she grows into her new life at Lithe, gave me the feels. Probably just a coincidence since i've been doing some soul searching lately. I happened to randomly stumble on this book while preparing for a long road trip and am so glad i did. Anyone else need more Darlington? I can't wait for the next release!