A budding dark sorceress determined not to use her formidable powers uncovers yet more secrets about the workings of her world in the stunning sequel to A Deadly Education, the start of Naomi Novik's groundbreaking crossover series.
At the Scholomance, El, Orion, and the other students are faced with their final year--and the looming specter of graduation, a deadly ritual that leaves few students alive in its wake. El is determined that her chosen group will survive, but it is a prospect that is looking harder by the day as the savagery of the school ramps up. Until El realizes that sometimes winning the game means throwing out all the rules . . .
I love what this series is doing. I think it works pretty well as a YA fantasy romance while also giving a nuanced analogy for power dynamics in the real world, where people have to balance their desire to be good and kind with the realities of a world where resources are finite but threats to survival are not. I can’t wait to see what the graduates of the Scholomance, having finally gained the insight the school was pushing them towards all along, do next. They have a huge task in front of them: sharing that education with the rest of the world of wizards.
Well you had to continue, we have to graduate.. don't we?
Character development was pretty spot on pace and the narrative just a fun ride. Again the spells, lore, and creature compendium is worthy of a book all its own. 'The Grimoire of the Scholomance" or something.
These books end on pretty good hard edges so you really do have to keep going if you want to know, and.. I want to know.
3.25 I really wanted to love this book and there are certainly many ingenious parts and good ideas (loved the mice familiars) in there, but the beginning and the end are a bit suboptimal. In the beginning it does take quite a to pick up steam and though we do learn more about the school and the way it looks and works the pacing was too slow for me. There's a lot more worldbuilding in general, but somehow the world outside still felt kind of hollow to me - even more so than the Scholomance in the first novel.
The first big plot twist was quite satisfying and the plan they embark on is crazy, but not wholly unjustifiable. It does strain the suspense of disbelief, though. But while the first book was about friendship and being annoyed at your friends, this one does have to have a love story …
3.25 I really wanted to love this book and there are certainly many ingenious parts and good ideas (loved the mice familiars) in there, but the beginning and the end are a bit suboptimal. In the beginning it does take quite a to pick up steam and though we do learn more about the school and the way it looks and works the pacing was too slow for me. There's a lot more worldbuilding in general, but somehow the world outside still felt kind of hollow to me - even more so than the Scholomance in the first novel.
The first big plot twist was quite satisfying and the plan they embark on is crazy, but not wholly unjustifiable. It does strain the suspense of disbelief, though. But while the first book was about friendship and being annoyed at your friends, this one does have to have a love story and it's predictable and slightly sickening like the final plot twist. Why do all books that focus on a boy and a girl have to go this way? If El had been Elrond and not Galadriel the majority of readers would have been surprised, but this way around it couldn't apparently go any other way. It was one of my greatest disappointments with Naomi Novik so far. Not that I loved the relationship in Uprooted, but at least it wasn't so stylised into romance above all else.
The whole story is still interesting enough to make me want to read the final part, but I do hope there will be more about Liu, Aadhiya, Chloe, Liesel and so on and not more focus on the mostly colourless boys. Though to be fair, there are also a lot of girls that come seemingly out of the woodwork. I guess that's a problem with c0ndensing a busy school year into less than 400 hundred large-print pages.
El, the dark-sorceress-to-be and pals are back to face the trials of the Scholomance, and this year is shaping up to be the hardest yet. Freshmen are underfoot, El is effectively alone in classes, and Orion isn't helping.
Ich fand den ersten Band sehr gut, wollte unbedingt weiterlesen und habe mich auch nicht gelangweilt. Aber es passiert auch sehr wenig Interessantes. Die Konflikte aus dem ersten Band sind gelöst und die neuen sind entweder Scheinkonflikte oder lösen sich auf langweilige Weise von allein. Anderen Rezensionen entnehme ich aber, dass es sich um so was wie einen Brückenband oder das zu lange Ende von Teil eins handelt, deshalb werde ich es mit dem dritten noch mal probieren, wenn er rauskommt.
Surprising amount of warm and fuzzies for the sequel to A Deadly Education! Well at least until the finale. A lovely message of international cooperation and looking out for others.
