1st book in the Alex Stern Series
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.
CW: sexual assault, rape, drug abuse, drug use, toxic relationship, murder, violence, blood, gore
Rating
Review
I wanted to read this book for a long time, but I was so intimidated by the reviews and the darkness of this book; also, we didn’t have any date for the release of the second book. However, as the second book was published yesterday, I decided to finally read it.
For me, the book was divided into two parts. The first one focuses on creating the atmosphere where the story will take place. For that, you have a ton of repetitive descriptions that are, at some point, boring. Also, you have a ton of information, and they are complex, but the way it’s delivered feels very dumpy. At least enough to lose the reader. During this part, don’t expect too much plot as you have more of a character-driven part to explain what happens to them and how they finish working for Lethe. I found it at the same time very interesting and too long, as you have two points of view, Alex’s and Darlington ones.The second part is more plot-driven, and the information you need to understand the societies merge much more with what is happening. Hence, they are so much easier to understand. I missed a ton of elements in the first part, but that I understand in the second one. I partly figured out some of the ending details, but I was surprised by how everything clicked together.
Character-wise, I preferred a lot more Alex as I find her so interesting and to see how her abilities completely changed her life, and her, was really interesting to read. For Darlington, I didn’t care about him and his pov. While reading him, I felt that he was talking about his experience and, simultaneously, someone completely different was telling his story. I hope it will change in the second book.
The darkness of the book, which was one of the reasons I didn’t want to read this book, was, in the end, not that dark and readable. At some point, I knew I was reading an adult book, but sometimes it slowly slid toward the young adult side.
I will definitely continue the series as even if I wasn’t into the first part with all the very long descriptions, the second part and the ending were intriguing. I think it will be more like the second part as we have the base of this fictional YALE and how the houses work.
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