Thank you Hachette for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review

Synopsis:

Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?

Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.

Review:

I have real torn thoughts about this book.

The first 100 pages slapped me in the face and I was sitting there in a daze in the middle of a chaos that I had no idea who was who, who they were boning and what kind of eggs they like. There was also a lot of back and forth for the main character Alex that had no real clear understanding, like a rush of information had to quickly be thrown at us like we were naughty children. If a character needs back story slowly roll it over time and let it bloom, don’t keep throwing it at us, it was over kill. Like a plant being over watered. I was legit drowning in unclear confusion.

One of the many reasons that I love Bardugo is her fantastic skills at world building, it is unlike no other. However I felt that that only began half way through the book, instead of consistently along the way.

What I did love is all the dark, stabby, stabby – dead moments. They were brilliant, gruesome and full of gore and I licked that up like a rainbow paddle pop!

Though the pace of the book was hard to keep up with, some action scenes were mind-blowing but then the chatter in between went for way too long. Though I have to admit, I didn’t mind because the action scenes over took anything else.

I love Alex, and her persona and how she handles everything thrown at her. She was strong, resilient and I am all here for it.

Also that ghost bathroom scene was fricken epic. It never even occurred to me that a ghost could even have the possibilities of doing that but now that is one thing that my mad mind won’t forget to quickly. That brings me around to another thing that I like about this book was Bardugo’s shock factor, her mind must be magical and dark.

Wrapping things up, Bardugo’s writing, well, what can I say? I think her writing is brilliant no matter what she writes.

Rating: 3.5/5

Publisher: Flatiron Books

ISBN: 9781250313072