Ninth House

It took me a while to get into, but after the 30% mark I was hooked. I'd consider this a paranormal urban fantasy and murder mystery in a dark academia setting. It has Bardugo's strong world building and multiple moving plots leading into one gigantic crescendo. But the multiple mysteries and nine houses got overwhelming. It kept things interesting because almost every prediction I made was wrong.  I loved how each of the storylines tied into at least one of the themes of power, greed, or fair vs right. The recurring imagery and analogies, like describing the city as alive or the Houses as children playing wizard, really helped plot out the bigger points of the story. 

The magic system didn't make too much sense to me, there isn't healing magic but there's undo magic? Ok sure, whatever. I also missed the witty banter between characters that was so prominent in Six of Crows. Alex definitely had her moments but I wanted more of that from the Darlington or Detective Turner.