Book: Hell Bent

Written by: Leigh Bardugo

Publisher: Hachette

Price: ₹799

Leigh Bardugo’s books are meant to be made into popular cinema. That is not to say that they are too melodramatic, but the breakneck action sequences and exotic images she packs into every chapter can leave her readers a bit dizzy. Notwithstanding the abrupt beginnings and the delay in explanations generic to most adult fantasy novels, Hell Bent, the second book of the Alex Stern trilogy, manages to surprise readers.

Galaxy ‘Alex’ Stern can harness the powers of ghosts and is part of a mysterious society at Yale University. Lethe, her 'house', is one of the nine secret, anonymously-funded societies at Yale that practise serious magic with world-changing consequences.

The first book had ended with the disappearance of Alex’s mentor, Daniel ‘Darlington’ Arlington. Hell Bent picks up the strands from there. Bardugo creates an eerily realistic fantasy, the kind that makes readers squirmish. Alex leads a dual life: a Californian teen, charged with drug abuse and assaults, as well as a Yale ritualist who is a custodian of cliques that perform gory rituals for patrons. Bardugo peppers the narrative with requisite amounts of history, Latin phrases and sudden deaths to make the book dark but offhandedly funny — Hell Bent can take you to an alternative world of sinister magic. Her Yale is sinister, not just because of fictional monsters but because of real ones that women trying to survive must steer clear of.

Bardugo does not have to look far for her inspiration: her years at Yale and being a member of an actual secret society arm her with a rich supply of plot twists. Hopefully, the gruesome rituals and hideous magic that Bardugo describes as part of these societies are her coping mechanism against the terrible Yale architecture.