I just finished The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. I’d rate it “good enough” since I’m reading the sequel; it reads like a somewhat more satisfying “The Magicians”. But I noticed that it kind of forgot there was an actual plot, and it’s super frustrating.
There is a murder mystery, and also the puzzle of a famous ghost that gets close to Alex, our protagonist. But it reads like Berdugo is enamored of explaining Yale, Alex and her YA-perfect mentor, Darlington (a name so on-the-nose that I snorted) that she ignored the plot for most of the book. There’s an actually fascinating storyline in the last few chapters, but it feels like her editor had to remind her to actually finish the “story.”
The only previous book I remember getting a similar impression from is The Lovely Bones. Are there other books that gave you the feeling that the author didn’t really care about their own story and just wanted to just live with the characters or location?
by ez2remembercpl