Spoiler-Free Review

This is my review for book two in the Alex Stern series, Hell Bent. See below for my review of book 1: 

• Book 1: Ninth House

What’s Hell Bent about?

Alex and Dawes begin a perilous hunt for a way into Hell to retrieve their friend, Darlington, who has now taken on a demonic form.

It was good, if less rich overall. 

Book 1, Ninth House, was one of my top reads last year. It took us on a dark-academia-cum-paranormal adventure that seamlessly blended horror, mystery, and collegiate elements. Book 2 basically abandons the dark academia thread in all but technicality (I mean, they’re on campus and still do their school work) in favor of an almost purely fantasy plot. Scholarly pursuits and campus politics are pushed into the background, more as an element of setting than plot this time around. This made for a less thematically rich story, in my opinion.

In book 1, we learned the mysteries of Alex’s past, including her history of substance abuse, addiction, and absorption into the wrong crowds. I do appreciate that in book 2, it becomes obvious that escaping that life will not be as easy as she thought. And not because of the substance abuse itself but because a major drug kingpin won’t let her go without a fight. 

I do still love Alex Stern as a main character. She is not inherently good, heroic, or selfless. She’s a former drug crony and payment collector (of the any-means-necessary variety) who lies, cheats, and steals her way into what she wants. Alex is rough around the edges, street smart, hardened by a life of surviving drug dens, and that makes her one of the more interesting characters I’ve followed. 

“Protect your own. Pay your debts.” 

There was less emphasis on mysterious subplots or other POVs this time around. Book 1 had more depth to it in that we had two timelines going at the same time – Alex’s POV in the present, and Darlington’s POV from months earlier. Plus, we were trying to connect the dots about Alex’s own sordid past. In book 2, it felt to me like there was less discovery for the reader to do. Sure, there were some deaths to solve (very much in the background, not a priority), and a subplot about Alex being the muscle for a drug lord, but it just felt as though more could have been done with those. 

Also, a side note: I listened to this one as an audiobook (I read book 1 with my eyes). It’s hard to say how much this affected my reading experience compared to Ninth House, because while the narrator did a good job, I definitely heard Alex’s voice differently in my own internal narration. So that said, I bumped my rating up to account for that. 

Should you read Hell Bent?

If you’ve read Ninth House, definitely keep going. I personally liked book 1 more, but book 2 wasn’t bad. You may actually like book 2 more if you prefer fantasy over dark academia or horror.