Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo- My Review
Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo
My Review
Introduction:
After reading Ninth House, the first book in the Alex Stern Series by Leigh Bardugo, I was immediately drawn to book two. Even though book one didn’t exactly end on a cliffhanger, the Darlington story arc left me seriously wanting. Luckily for me, and totally unintentionally, I had just finished Book One when Hell Bent released on the 10th of January 2023. I was so relieved when I discovered this, because the thought of waiting a year or so to go back to Yale was almost unbearable.
About The Book:
Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo
Synopsis
Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. Alex Stern is back and the Ivy League is going straight to hell.
Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy "Alex" Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory?even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale.
Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can't call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies' most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren't just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she'll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university's very walls.
Thick with history and packed with Bardugo's signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters.
My Review
My Rating: ★★★★★
This book really captured my attention, just as the first one did. The prologue for this story, where Alex is drawn into the Black Elm basement was seriously creepy, and didn’t fully make sense until I’d read through the book. I also felt myself scratching my head throughout as Babbit Rabbit suddenly popped into the story. Maybe I missed something in book one- but I didn’t remember him being mentioned very much if at all. I did find the rabbit’s role in the story to be quite emotional, and it really did pull on my heart.
The descent to hell in this book was really well done in most ways, but I kind of felt that the author almost ‘cheated’ with Alex simply walking through to hell and rescuing Darlington on her second venture there. It seems almost insane that the characters went to so much trouble to get in the first time, and then left without who they came for in the first place. I liked the demon angle on the storyline, and I feel like the set up is really there for a great romance with a unique power dynamic between Alex and Darlington if that’s where the author is heading. I also found myself oddly drawn to Tripp in this, which surprised me as I loathed his character in the first instalment. I also loved Dawes’ character development and felt both Oculus and Centurion had great roles to play throughout the book. The backstory for Turner was well placed and desperately needed, and I enjoyed seeing him drawn into the fold a bit more. The parts with Eitan I felt could have been taken out entirely, except for his role in the final fight, but I did enjoy seeing Bardugo’s take on Vampires in this novel and would gladly learn even more about Reiter in following novels. The twist at the end was good, and honestly, I didn’t see it coming, so I’ll be interested to see how Bardugo takes the character of Tripp forward, as well as if the worlds of Hell and Yale seem to overlap a little more. This book felt more desperate than the first, with more riding on Alex’s success, but one character that did piss me off no end was Mercy. Her reaction to the novel’s climax and the way she pulled away from Alex felt simply uncalled for after how many times she’d been warned away and told that what she was doing was dangerous.
I loved demon Darlington. I loved being in his mind and seeing him walk the fine line between gentleman and beast and look forward to seeing more of him in the next installment. I also want to find out who Alex’s father is, as this seems kind of important. I kind of wished we knew more about what a WheelWalker was by the end of this book too, but I suppose you can’t rush perfection, and this world and these characters are close. I know that this is all leading up to something great, and I can only hope that Bardugo delivers. I have no reason to believe that she won’t.
To conclude, if you don’t mind waiting for the third book, love stories about darkness and demons, Hell and twisty characters with dark pasts, this one’s for you. It brings everything you love about Dark Academia in spades but with characters that seem almost too rough around the edges to possibly belong, even those you originally peg as privileged and ‘golden’, as Bardugo puts it. Honestly, I feel like the world has such a grip on you that you’ll be left, much as I have been, thinking about the book for days after you turn the final page.
Aesthetic Gallery
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