A dropout who can see ghosts is given a full ride to Yale to police its secret occult societies — and the magic they hide.
- Score
- 79.9
- Spice
- 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️Sweet
- POV
- third
- Ending
- HEA / HFN
Tropes
Content warnings
Curated signals, not an exhaustive guarantee.
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What readers think
Readers consistently praise Bardugo's atmospheric prose, the vividly rendered Yale setting, and the audacious premise of secret societies wielding genuine occult power — the world-building is widely seen as the book's greatest strength. Alex Stern is valued as a rare adult-fantasy heroine shaped by poverty and trauma rather than destiny, and Darlington is almost universally beloved, with many readers wishing he had more page time. The most repeated criticism is pacing: the dual timeline can feel disjointed and the middle section drags, with some readers finding the volume of flashback exposition stalling the present-day mystery. A significant minority object that certain depictions of sexual violence — particularly involving a minor — feel gratuitous rather than purposeful. Goodreads places it at roughly 3.9 stars across 300,000+ ratings and it won the 2020 Goodreads Choice Award for Fantasy, signalling broad appeal despite the polarising content.
Read it if
- · Readers who want dark academia with genuine menace — secret societies, Ivy League privilege, and actual occult stakes
- · Fans of trauma-informed heroines navigating worlds built for people with more power than them
- · Anyone who loves atmospheric, prose-driven mysteries where the setting is as important as the plot
Skip it if
- · Graphic sexual violence — including assault of a minor — is a hard content limit for you
- · You want spicy or explicit romance; there is virtually none, and relationship tension stays largely unresolved in book one
- · Slow, layered pacing frustrates you — the book rewards patience but does not rush
If you liked this
- · For fans of The Secret History by Donna Tartt — Ivy League privilege, occult undertones, and moral complexity
- · For fans of The Magicians by Lev Grossman — magic in an elite academic setting with genuinely dark adult stakes
- · For fans of Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia — gothic atmosphere, a fierce heroine, and slow-burn dread
- · For fans of Caraval by Stephanie Garber — if you want the same author's lighter YA voice, this is the opposite; proceed knowing that
In this series
Part of Alex Stern — read in order:
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