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 …
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.
With flawless mastery, Naomi Novik creates a school bursting with magic like you’ve never seen before, and 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.
Abandoned after first chapter but I will concede that I am probably the wrong audience for this book; it would more likely appeal to mid-teens. I usually love YA fiction, but I just could not get past the arrogant whine of the main character. I flipped through to spot read to see if her entitled attitude would dial back and then realized I wasn't invested enough in the hints of the story to come presented in chapter one, so back to the library for something different.
Anissa Dadia does an excellent job as narrator keeping you interested in a book that starts out featuring an angsty teenage dark mage who is in a terrible place by force. Naomi Novik deserves credit for setting up such a difficult task as an author. But as things progress, and the book wins the reader over, we get to see Novik’s ability to subtly include allegory on a number of real world social ills. That and some very nice language work… plus a very good ending making me get the second volume right away. 4.5 stars rounded up!
Não me senti investida nem nos personagens nem na ambientação da história. Apenas 2 personagens no livro inteiro recebem uma caracterização decente - El e Orion. Todo o resto é reduzido a nomes e caracterizado pelo idioma que falam e esteriótipos estúpidos ou incorretos. A história é contada em primeira pessoa pela nossa protagonista El e ela passa parágrafos e parágrafos fazendo seus monológos que muitas vezes eu esquecia pq ela começou a pensar naquilo. Esse livro tem muita encheção de linguiça que a autora pensa que dá pra classificar como worldbuilding e que no fim não acrescenta em nada. Sabemos muito sobre enclaves, dos maw-mouths, da diferença de mana e malia, malificer e wizards e é isso! A Scholomance em si fica dificil de imaginar. A autora poderia ter passado menos páginas reduzindo seus personagens a meros "fulana, que fala tal idioma" e feito um worldbuilding mais efetivo. Ler …
Não me senti investida nem nos personagens nem na ambientação da história. Apenas 2 personagens no livro inteiro recebem uma caracterização decente - El e Orion. Todo o resto é reduzido a nomes e caracterizado pelo idioma que falam e esteriótipos estúpidos ou incorretos. A história é contada em primeira pessoa pela nossa protagonista El e ela passa parágrafos e parágrafos fazendo seus monológos que muitas vezes eu esquecia pq ela começou a pensar naquilo. Esse livro tem muita encheção de linguiça que a autora pensa que dá pra classificar como worldbuilding e que no fim não acrescenta em nada. Sabemos muito sobre enclaves, dos maw-mouths, da diferença de mana e malia, malificer e wizards e é isso! A Scholomance em si fica dificil de imaginar. A autora poderia ter passado menos páginas reduzindo seus personagens a meros "fulana, que fala tal idioma" e feito um worldbuilding mais efetivo. Ler que Scholomance é uma Hogwarts mortal é realmente de despertar a curiosidade, afinal, quem não adora uma história de escola de magia, cheia de lore? Mas aqui a lore que é apresentada não acrescenta em muita coisa e muitas vezes Novik atira no próprio pé com a tentativa de diversidade. Não gostei de nenhum dos dois personagens que a autora desenvolve bem.
Não pretendo continuar a série, a não ser que alguém consiga me convencer que ela melhora os pontos que levantei na resenha... Minha busca por uma série de escola de magia que preste continua.
So viel Info Dumping in einem Buch hab ich ja schon ewig nicht mehr erlebt. Das hat die Geschichte zäh gemacht und manchmal sogar komplett die Spannung genommen, die eh rar gesät war. Ich weiß noch nicht genau, wie ich zum Buch stehe, und bin mir auch noch nicht sicher, ob ich weiterlesen werde.
This book caught me like a venus fly trap. Grimdark Harry Potter? Huh.. Oh what it really hit me was something like [b:Gideon the Ninth|42036538|Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)|Tamsyn Muir|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546870952l/42036538.SY75.jpg|60943229]. How can you not like a supernatural snarky female lead.
My only gripe is a personal one. It is YA and I'm not terribly, and El, the main character has some really jagged flaws which can become.. long winded. But it's so worth working through her development.
The Spell-World-Building is also just fun and dark and insane.
"I decided that Orion needed to die after the second time he saved my life."
Killer opening line, leading right into an engaging world. I'm still a bit surprised that I ended up loving this book so much - El as a main character took a while to grow on me (beyond what seemed intentional).
This book does the "setting as a character" thing pretty damn well though:
"The school will come after you if the work doesn't get done, but it doesn't care in the slightest if you cheat."
So the world sucked me in deeply and quickly, and I had time to get invested in the characters. By the end I was fully onboard and pumped for book 2.
Now for a bit of a wild and silly tangent... somewhere along the line I got a bit of a theory started in my head and I can't let …
"I decided that Orion needed to die after the second time he saved my life."
Killer opening line, leading right into an engaging world. I'm still a bit surprised that I ended up loving this book so much - El as a main character took a while to grow on me (beyond what seemed intentional).
This book does the "setting as a character" thing pretty damn well though:
"The school will come after you if the work doesn't get done, but it doesn't care in the slightest if you cheat."
So the world sucked me in deeply and quickly, and I had time to get invested in the characters. By the end I was fully onboard and pumped for book 2.
Now for a bit of a wild and silly tangent... somewhere along the line I got a bit of a theory started in my head and I can't let it go. So (minor spoilers for both this book and Stephen King's Dark Tower series):
In the Dark Tower series, there are "thinnies" where reality has eroded. There are gaps between worlds, and who knows what sort of crazy shit is lurking in there. There are also some references to the Harry Potter books in the later books. Now I feel like the Scholomance vibe is much more dark/creepy/King than Hogwarts is, and the Scholomance itself exists within the void. So in my head it's accessible from a warbling thinny somewhere, and the void monsters from the Dark Tower series are maleficaria. This probably doesn't make sense if you think about it too hard, but I haven't! And I hope I can avoid doing so - because I like the idea, damn it.
The twisted magic school story I never knew I needed. I loved the sassy heroine and the entire novel was so original and creative. Can't wait to read book 2!
Approximately at 80-ish "kindle"-page on 6.3-inch smartphone the book appears: a) totally not about not-ravenclaw-ripoff sideline character uprising against not-harry-potter-ripoff "main" character b) living in totally not random "cool name let's dust it off" magic school (so sorry, Scholomance, you deserve better coverage) c) with magic system's explanation designed to be as befuddling as possible d) and with streams of consciousness infodumping which sometimes top Naruto's prolonged fights taking 5-10 20-min episodes to complete.
I apparently didn't write a review when I first read this, but I wanted to go back and add a note after finishing the series and apparently I first have to secure one to add that note to.
A Deadly Education is an awesome book! The core tropes are well known, school for young wizards, ostracized protagonist, boarding school, yada, yada, but Novik's Scholomance is unlike any school you've ever encountered. No teachers, no adults at all actually, a lot of monsters and ... well it's all better experienced through reading the book.
And while a great book doesn't guarantee a great series, having read the whole trilogy I can promise you this one holds up. I'm rarely completely satisfied when finishing a series and think writing a good ending is exceedingly hard, but this one might be the best I have ever read.
Ich war von Anfang bis Ende begeistert, vier Sterne fast ein bisschen zu knapp. Ich mochte vor allem das, was in dieser 1-Sterne-Rezension (nicht vorher lesen, wenn man so ahnungslos wie ich an die Lektüre herangehen möchte, was ich empfehle) www.goodreads.com/review/show/3619607713?book_show_action=false kritisiert wird: Es geht sehr, sehr ausführlich um technische Details aus der Zauberschule, Sitzordnungen in der Cafeteria, soziale Zusammenhänge, Organisation des Schulalltags. Allerdings enthält die verlinkte Rezension ein bestürzendes Detail zur Vorgeschichte des Romans, jetzt kommen mir vier Sterne doch angemessen vor, denn ein bisschen schäbig ist das schon. Wie gesagt, besser nicht vorher ansehen.
