A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
Hello Books Lovers,
how are you organizing your readings now that the holidays are over? Are there any books that you have prioritized, or will you continue with your TBR? I have just finished reading a Mondadori book, one of their latest releases, by a much loved author in the young adult fantasy world, Naomi Novik with Scholomance, the first volume of what I believe will be a trilogy. This first volume is subtitled A Deadly Education.
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.
With flawless mastery, Naomi Novik creates a heroine for the ages – a character so sharply realized and so richly nuanced that she will live on in hearts and minds for generations to come.
Perhaps reading other reviews of this book in the past few months has influenced me a lot, so I started reading it with high expectations that faded page after page. Scholomance has been compared to Harry Potter, but the only thing they have in common is the element of the school of magic.
As you can see from the plot, in the Scholomance there are no teachers, it is all in the hands of the students themselves in a place where magic is the key to everything. But I found the book slow in many parts, and without the adventure, and the mysteries that I had expected.
What I liked the most was the enemies to lovers relationship between El and Orion, and that ending … a single sentence that blew up all the information that had been given to us previously. But the final, closing sentence of this book was enough to make me want the sequel right away even though I didn’t love the first as much as I would have liked. Now there are mysteries to unravel.
Would I recommend this book? Sure why not. In itself it’s not bad, just don’t start reading it with high expectations to please you even more. And then let me know what you think. Reading about El, her hatred for Orion, and how they got closer over time, with all their friends in the background, wasn’t bad at all, and if there was even more adventure this story would have been perfect. 3.5 stars.
