Welcome to my book reviews for The Scholomance trilogy by Naomi Novik! Please be aware that book reviews for later book reviews may contain spoilers for previous titles.

A Deadly Education Book Review

The Sunday Times bestseller!

FINALIST FOR THE LODESTAR AWARD

In the start of an all-new trilogy, the bestselling author of Uprooted and Spinning Silver introduces you to a dangerous school for the magically gifted where failure means certain death - until one girl begins to rewrite its rules.
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Enter a school of magic unlike any you have ever encountered.

There are no teachers, no holidays, friendships are purely strategic, and the odds of survival are never equal. Once you're inside, there are only two ways out: you graduate or you die.

El Higgins is uniquely prepared for the school's many dangers. She may be without allies, but she possesses a dark power strong enough to level mountains and wipe out untold millions - never mind easily destroy the countless monsters that prowl the school.

Except, she might accidentally kill all the other students, too. So El is trying her hardest not to use it . . . that is, unless she has no other choice.

This book was provided for free by NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book!

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Have you ever picked up a book and got more than you expected, realised you were not quite sure what you were reading but ended up drawn into it anyway? That’s what A Deadly Education was for me. The synopsis I read was vastly different from the one above. The book seems to be promoted with two alternate ones, this one is listed in The Book Depository, however, the one I saw on Amazon is as follows:

I decided that Orion Lake needed to die after the second time he saved my life.

Everyone loves Orion Lake. Everyone else, that is. Far as I’m concerned, he can keep his flashy combat magic to himself. I’m not joining his pack of adoring fans.

I don’t need help surviving the Scholomance, even if they do. Forget the hordes of monsters and cursed artifacts, I’m probably the most dangerous thing in the place. Just give me a chance and I’ll level mountains and kill untold millions, make myself the dark queen of the world.

At least, that’s what the world expects. Most of the other students in here would be delighted if Orion killed me like one more evil thing that’s crawled out of the drains. Sometimes I think they want me to turn into the evil witch they assume I am. The school certainly does.

But the Scholomance isn’t getting what it wants from me. And neither is Orion Lake. I may not be anyone’s idea of the shining hero, but I’m going to make it out of this place alive, and I’m not going to slaughter thousands to do it, either.

Although I’m giving serious consideration to just one.

 As you can see there’s no mention of a school without teachers, holidays or non-strategic friendships so I was in for a bit of a shock when I first delved into A Deadly Education! If you’re looking for a darker Hogwarts you’re getting a bit warm, and that’s about where any comparison to any magical or fantasy school you’ve ever known ends. The Scholomance is nothing like anything you’ve ever encountered before. In some ways it makes me think of what would have happened if Dr Frankenstein had decided to build a school instead of a creature. It’s not made of body parts, so don’t worry. There’s a definite mad scientist vibe going on.

El, the protagonist, is everything I’ve ever wanted in a character. If you’ve ever sat alone at break time, had someone look at you as though you were nothing or had someone make the sign of the cross at you because you’re just that evil (yes, someone did this to me), then you will relate to El. You will applaud her no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners approach to her classmates and her rudeness won’t put you off. I was El, and I’m glad to see someone finally writing a character like her so that the next generation of young women can have someone go through everything she (and they/us) went through and know it’s ok to be a bitch. It’s okay to say enough is enough, not to put up with the smiling fake faces when people want something from you because someone always does. It’s ok to put yourself first and to concentrate on surviving.

The Last Graduate Book Review

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Sequel to the Sunday Times bestselling and Lodestar award-nominated A Deadly Education

'The dark school of magic I have been waiting for' Katherine Arden, author of The Bear and the Nightingale

'Fantasy that delights on every level' Stephanie Garber, author of Caraval
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Return to the Scholomance - and face an even deadlier graduation - in the stunning sequel to the ground-breaking, Sunday Times bestselling A Deadly Education.

The dark school of magic has always done its best to devour its students, but now that El has reached her final year -- and somehow won herself a handful of allies along the way -- it's suddenly developed a very particular craving . . .

For her.

As the savagery of the school ramps up, El is determined that she will not give in; not to the mals, not to fate, and especially not to the Scholomance. But as the spectre of graduation looms -- the deadly final ritual that leaves few students alive -- if she and her allies are to make it out, El will need to realise that sometimes winning the game means throwing out all the rules.
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Wry, witty, endlessly inventive, and mordantly funny -- yet with a true depth and fierce justice at its heart -- this enchanting novel reminds us that there are far more important things than mere survival.

This book was provided for free by NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book!

Content Warnings:

The Last Graduate picks up directly after the first book. El is still standing there, holding the piece of paper she was given at the end of the first book, and I like that Novik chose to do this rather than skip time, as most authors do. We got to see El’s reaction straight away and got to know what she was feeling at that moment rather than hindered by any hindsight, and I don’t think it would have worked any other way. Everything about The Scholomance is in the moment. Hindsight is for survivors.

As suspected from the synopsis, everything changes this year and El is thrown through a loop by the school. She’s given a horrible study schedule, and then this amazing study period that seems like it’s too good to be true which of course; it is because this is The Scholomance. Nothing is ever for nothing in here. As she tries to keep up with her studies, normal Scholomance life, planning for graduation, teenage life and on top of it the bombshell her mum landed in her lap, El finds herself trying to unravel the fun new rubbish the School is throwing at her.

Then, she slowly begins to realise that the School doesn’t do anything without a purpose…. and she and her friends end up taking on a massive task that no one has ever done before. Is it really throwing out all the rules if the School is on your side?

In the first book, the idea of the Scholomance and how horrible the entire system was didn’t quite hit home. In this one, something happens outside the school and the students have to come to terms with realising that they have no way of knowing what they’re walking back out into. They know something has happened, something terrible, and for all they know the world outside could be falling to pieces. They are completely isolated in The Scholomance without any communication with anyone outside, save for the new students that enter, and they have just come in with the bad news.

For El and her friends, they’ll find out when they graduate, however, all the younger students have a year or more to find out what is happening. During their time in The Scholomance, anything could happen to their family, and they wouldn’t know until they leave. It’s just as terrifying for their families, though, because they have no idea if their children are even surviving inside the school, and yet they have no choice because outside the school it’s too dangerous. The world Novik has created is terrifying.

I loved the first book in this series, I didn’t think it would be possible to love the second any more… I was wrong. The characters develop even more in The Last Graduate, and I loved the friendship between El, Aadhya and Liu. In the first book their friendship is tentative, an alliance for graduation rather than a friendship, and in The Last Graduate they grow closer. They begin to let their guard down around each other and trust one another with secrets and fears. El struggles with abandonment issues throughout the book, but her friends stick by her, and Novik’s dialogue during these conversations is both poignant and witty as Aadhya whips up some sass to convince El that they’re not going anywhere for the third time;

“Stop it!” she said. “I think that’s like the third time you’ve asked to be ditched. You’re like one of those puffer fish, the second anyone touches you a little wrong you go all bwoomp,” she illustrated with her hands, “trying to make them let go. We’ll let you know, how’s that?”

The sarcasm in book one was fantastic; in The Last Graduate it’s been refined to a fine art and I love it. This is a book for everyone who loves sarcasm, for the people who roll their eyes and say “Really?” or walk into rooms and walk back out of them again while muttering “You’ve got to be joking…”.

The one thing I wasn’t quite sold on in this book is the romance. I think it’s because I spent most of the book analysing the love interest and trying to work out what was going on. I think I was thinking far too much about it when it was a lot simpler than I had imagined. Normally I tend to fall for the romance hard (I’m a Libra, after all), and I felt it more for the secondary characters than I did for the main characters.

At the Del Rey Showcase, Novik said that we would hate her even more at the end of this book. That was an accurate assessment. If you thought the first cliffhanger was bad, this one is even worse.

What more can I say? A fantastic book, one hell of a cliffhanger and oh goodness please give us the next book quickly?! It’s been a long time since I’ve been this caught up with books that I’ve had to handle a cliffhanger, normally I’m years behind, so I just move on to the next one! No agonising wait.

Considering how The Last Graduate has ended, the third book is going to be explosive in a lot of ways. It’s going to be one hell of a book and I can’t wait.

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