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commented on A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik (The Scholomance, #1)

Naomi Novik: A Deadly Education (Hardcover, 2020, Del Rey) 4 stars

A Deadly Education is set at Scholomance, a school for the magically gifted where failure …

This is quite the refreshing take on Dark Academia. Instead of the elitism and classism of contemporary academia being caused by structures of racism and capitalism outside of personal control, it's caused by spooky monsters that you could theoretically punch in the face to regain some agency. It's weird to say that the school literally wanting to physically kill you makes this book less stressful in its depiction of class society, but so it goes.