Nona casa [Ninth House] — Dark Magic Behind Ivy-Covered Walls

Sophie had been down for exactly eleven minutes when I hit play on this one. Eleven minutes of silence. I knew I was rolling the dice — a 16-hour dark fantasy audiobook in Portuguese is not exactly my usual "cozy romance I can pause 47 times" territory. But here's the thing: I studied Portuguese in college (back when I had a life that included "studying" and "college"), and I've been trying to keep it sharp between wiping noses and negotiating screen time treaties. So when I saw Leigh Bardugo's Ninth House had a Brazilian Portuguese edition narrated by Carolina Gruhl, I thought — why not? My brain deserves something that isn't the Bluey theme song on repeat.

I was not prepared.

Yale's Secret Societies Have Nothing on My HOA

Let me be honest about what this book is and isn't. It is NOT a comfort read. Galaxy "Alex" Stern — drug-addled, trauma-haunted, sole survivor of an unexplained massacre — gets plucked from the wreckage of her life in LA and dropped into Yale to monitor secret societies that practice actual dark magic. Necromancy. Rituals involving the dead. The kind of stuff that makes you check your locks at night. Bardugo builds this world where privilege and the occult are basically the same thing — the rich and powerful literally trafficking in death to stay rich and powerful. It's not subtle, and it doesn't need to be. That same kind of morally unsparing fantasy world-building hooked me in Before They Are Hanged — power as corruption, war as ritual, nobody's hands clean.

What got me was Alex herself. She's feral in a way that felt real. Not "quirky damaged girl" real, but "has-seen-things-that-broke-her-and-is-still-standing" real. There's a scene early on where she's navigating Yale's campus for the first time, surrounded by students who belong there, and the way Bardugo writes her hyperawareness of every exit, every threat — I physically tensed up in my minivan. I've felt like an outsider walking into a room full of people who have it together (every school fundraiser, basically), but Alex's version of that feeling has teeth.

The structure jumps between "before" and "after" timelines, which normally would be a deal-breaker for my Swiss-cheese-pause-and-resume brain. But Bardugo keeps the timelines distinct enough that I could pick it back up after a Sophie meltdown and not feel completely lost. Not effortless, but doable.

Carolina Gruhl and the 16-Hour Commitment

Here's where I have to be upfront: I couldn't find much specific intel on Carolina Gruhl's narration from other listeners, and my Portuguese is good-but-rusty, so I'm not the best judge of accent work or character differentiation at a native-speaker level. What I can say is that her pacing felt right for the material — steady and a little dark, not rushed. The tone matched Alex's guarded, watchful energy. I listened at my usual 1.25x and it worked fine, though some of the Portuguese dialogue required me to actually concentrate (which, novel concept for someone who usually half-listens while unloading the dishwasher).

At 16 hours, this is a COMMITMENT. This is not a nap-time book. This is a "I'm going to need two weeks of car-time sessions and several school drop-off runs" book. I ended up listening during the evening too, after the kids were down, headphones in while folding laundry at 10 PM. Which actually might be the ideal vibe for a book about ghosts and secret rituals — there's something about folding tiny socks in a dark house that makes New Haven's occult underworld feel uncomfortably close.

Not My Lane, But I Drove It Anyway

Look, this is way outside my usual comfort zone. I'm a woman who reads Emily Henry and considers that adventurous. Bardugo's Ninth House has content that's genuinely disturbing — sexual violence, drug use, graphic death. The Portuguese edition doesn't soften any of that. If you're looking for a satisfying happy ending that lets you walk into Target with a smile, this is NOT that book.

But sometimes you need something that wakes your brain up. Something that treats you like an adult who can handle complicated, ugly, brilliant things. Between the yogurt cleanup and the school pickup line, I forgot that I used to be someone who read dark, ambitious books and liked it. Alex Stern reminded me.

Did I ugly-cry at school pickup? No. But I did sit in the parking lot for an extra ten minutes staring at nothing, which is honestly the bigger compliment. When I need to decompress after something that heavy, Hello, Summer is the reset button — the kind of warm, easy read that lets your brain exhale.

Who Gets the Keys (And Who Should Walk Away)

If you're a Portuguese speaker (or learner) who wants Bardugo's darkest work in a solid audio format, this is worth the investment. If you need a light listen you can zone in and out of — hard pass. This one demands your actual attention, and it earns it. Skip it if you're sensitive to on-page sexual violence or want something you can safely half-listen to during toddler chaos.