Review of Hell Bent—A Descent to the Underworld

Would you go to Hell and back to rescue a friend? Alex Stern is prepared to do just that in Leigh Bardugo’s Hell Bent, which came out earlier this year. If you loved the dark academia vibes and intricate paranormal world of Ninth House, then you do not want to miss this high-stakes sequel! 

Against all odds, Galaxy Stern survived her freshman year at Yale University. As the representative for Lethe House—the secret society tasked with watching over the occult dealings of all the other secret societies—she solved a murder, busted a magical drug ring, and faced off against the authority figures that should have been looking out for her. Oh, and she discovered that her mentor Darlington may have been dragged down to Hell. The Lethe House board is ready to write Darlington’s loss off as an unfortunate casualty, unwilling to even consider a risky—maybe even impossible—rescue attempt. But Alex can’t just abandon the first person to ever see all of her and accept her for who she is. Neither can Pamela Dawes, PhD candidate and the research-loving brain behind Ninth House’s operations. Together, Alex, Dawes, and whatever allies they can scrounge up must find a gateway into Hell, make the descent, steal a soul, and return to the world of the living, all without attracting the suspicion of their Lethe leaders or unleashing the horrors of Hell upon the university. Meanwhile, more murders are being committed on campus, someone from Alex’s past is trying to drag her back into her old life, and her power over ghosts is starting to feel like a dangerously two-way street. Battling demons—literal and internal, solving murders, sneaking around, and keeping up with her classwork is a lot for a college sophomore to handle. But Alex Stern isn’t one to back down from a fight.

This book revolves around one of the oldest tropes in literature: the descent to the underworld. In one of my earlier blog posts, I briefly touched on how katabasis—the term scholars use for this trope in the field of Greek myth and epic poetry—manifests in modern fantasy literature. It’s no surprise to see it here in the Alex Stern books, especially since the Lethe society borrows language from Dante’s Inferno, one of the most famous stories about a journey into Hell. In Dante Alighieri’s epic poem, the author is guided through the underworld by the spirit of the Roman poet Virgil. In Ninth House, Alex took on the title of Dante, while her mentor Darlington was Lethe’s Virgil. In Hell Bent, those roles are in flux, Alex temporarily stepping into the role of Virgil without having completed her mentorship due to Darlington’s mysterious disappearance. Unlike the Inferno’s protagonist, Alex has no one to guide her safely through the underworld. Darlington does his best to reach beyond the veil and dole out cryptic clues, but for the most part Alex, Dawes, and their allies must find their own way into Hell and back, using only books from Lethe’s library, hints in the university’s architecture, and their own wit or willingness to wing it. Navigating the descent and return without guidance is no easy feat, but as Alex performs this journey multiple times over the course of the book, she begins to take on the role of psychopomp, or guider of souls, herself.

Another particularly interesting element of this story is its depiction of demons. In the previous book, we saw malicious ghosts and human murderers whose evil deeds were enhanced by magic. But what exactly are these creatures that inhabit—or escape from—that realm called Hell, and what makes them different from the other enemies Alex has faced before? Darlington describes demons as creatures of appetite; they feed off of strong human emotion, whether joy or sorrow, desire or desperation. There appear to be multiple different types of demons: some hold positions of power in the underworld and go by names we may recognize from world mythologies and occult literature. Others are nameless servants of those infernal potentates. Some demons can shapeshift, while others become tied to the form of a human they have consumed. One type of demon that Alex and her friends encounter blends both our literal and figurative understandings of the word. Alex and her companions are haunted by their own personal demons made manifest—human incarnations of the moments in their lives that make them feel most ashamed and desperate. They will have to face down their own inner turmoil in order to escape from these demons—a struggle that Alex finds much more challenging than any physical fight she has had to face.

I enjoyed reading Hell Bent even more than Ninth House, if that’s possible! You can find the book on shelves now at your favorite local retailer, or buy a copy online and support The Gothic Library in the process using this Bookshop.org affiliate link. If you’ve already read it, let me know what you think in the comments!