“That was the problem with love. It was hard to learn, no matter how harsh the lesson,” (Bardugo 209-210).
Alex Stern is determined to get her Virgil, Darlington, out of Hell. Even though the Lethe House has forbidden it, Alex has a plan in place that might just get her and her group to Hell and bring Darlington back. But things can never be easy. When professors on campus start being murdered in strange ways, Alex knows magic is involved. Despite the darkness that’s coming, Alex is determined to survive, even if it means confronting more demons from her past.
Despite my hopes, I didn’t enjoy Hell Bent anymore than Ninth House. Too much plot wise happens, it feels like an action movie. Alex wants to get Darlington out of Hell, Alex needs to find out how to actually get to Hell, professors are being murdered, Alex is blackmailed into doing some illegal things, how will all these plotlines get fixed?! Don’t worry, they do, oh so conveniently.
Characters are added that I don’t care about about, and the characters that made it from Ninth House are also uninteresting. Bardugo gives some more backstory to these characters but it didn’t make me care for them any more than I did before (and I already cared about them very little). I almost feel like this series should have been stretched out much longer. There’s just too much at stake that even the near-500 page count can’t fit all in. I almost wonder if Bardugo might have done better screenwriting these. I don’t know if she has any experience, but there’s definitely a cinematic quality to this series that would do well as a television show. Like Ninth House there were a lot of cool things happening and going on in the novel, but I just didn’t care about any of the high stakes.
There’s a lot I dislike about this series but I do love Darlington, even now. I want to make many jokes about him but I don’t want to spoil it, so I’ll just sit alone with that for now. And I’ll probably read the last book just for him. This series isn’t for me but I’m a sucker for Darlington. You got me Bardugo!
Publication: January 10th 2023
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Pages: 481 (Paperback ARC)
Source: OLA
Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Urban Fantasy
My Rating: ⛤⛤
Summary:
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.
Sarah O'Connor 