A deadly education : a novel (édition 2020)

An absolute glory of a book. A more deadly, more vicious wizarding school. A completely delightfully rude heroine, and a more interesting world than I have fallen into in a while. The storyline is excellent, but I love even more the themes of privilege and survival that run through it.

Advanced readers copy provided by Edelweiss. ( )

Wizard kids are inducted into the Scholomance, and spat out four years later at graduation - if they survive. Inside, they're on their own to fight the "mals" (maleficaria) - a horrifying variety of monsters requiring constant vigilance and, ideally, some kind of alliance. But Galadriel - El - has never had an alliance or even a friendship with anyone; she has an affinity for destruction, and though she has never hurt anyone, other students give her a wide berth. Except for Orion Lake, of the New York enclave, who keeps - annoyingly - saving her life. But Orion's heroism backfires when the seniors make a plan to let all the mals into the school before graduation, so they don't have to fight them all alone. Orion, El, and some others, drawing on mana from several enclaves, team up to venture down to the ground floor of the Scholomance to repair the machinery that is supposed to cleanse the graduation hall with mortal fire. Success means they live another year; failure means they die.

Tense, snarky, action-packed, and - unlike most magic schools - grown-up-free.

See also: The Magicians by Lev Grossman, Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

Quotes

I don't want to be here, but I don't want to be there, either. (15)

You have to ration sympathy and grief here the way you ration your school supplies (44)

My anger's a bad guest, my mother likes to say: comes without warning and stays a long time. (81)

...I've had to think and plan and strategize how I'm going to survive every single meal in here, and I'm so tired of it, and I'm tired of all of them, hating me for no reason, nothing I've ever done. I've never hurt any of them. I've been tying myself in knots and working myself to exhaustion just to avoid hurting any of them. It's so hard, it so hard in here all the time... (90)

Of course they'd be scared of me....I was scared of me, too. (140)

It's not that we don't all know that it's unfair, but nobody says so, because if you say so, enclavers don't invite you to join them on the better side of the unfair. (163)

We all wanted to live, and we were all doing our best to make it out of here, to end up safe, no matter how mean and awful we had to be along the way. (174)

I love having existential crises at bedtime, it's so restful. (181)

And they didn't stop at safety, either. The wanted comfort, and then they wanted luxury, and then they wanted excess, and every step of the way they still wanted to be safe, even as they made themselves more and more of a tempting target, and the only way they could stay safe was to have enough power to keep everyone off that wanted what they had. (182)

Dignity was what I had instead of friends. (190)

[Orion] was living the same garbage story I was, only in mirror image. (210)

"You just - you know, you get used to things. And you don't think about whether they're good. Or even okay. You don't want to think about it. And nobody else seems to, either." (Chloe from the New York enclave to Galadriel, 298)

My darling girl, I love you, have courage, and keep far away from Orion Lake. (El's mom Gwen's message to her - last line of book, p. 313) ( )

A really fun romp through a deadly wizard school. 2 parts Lord of the Flies and 1 part Harry Potter. Strongly recommend. ( )

Novik is such a talented writer, each of her series is so unique that it's almost hard to believe it's the same person! This series is more distinctly YA in comparison to her other works, but if you are not a fan of YA, don't let that deter you from giving The Scholomance a chance! It does not feel like a "dark" Harry Potter, it feels like its own world. Fiction, and fantasy especially, often blends together. Lots of repeating themes and formulas. There are lots of parallels to other works, but it still feels new and exciting. It's not ground breaking, it won't define the genre for the next decade, and it defienetly isn't setting any trends here, but it is an excellent story that you won't be able to put down.

Novik's characters, as always, are so interesting. She uses common YA tropes beautifully, she doesn't break the mold just to break it, she does it with intention and purpose. Galadriel is wonderfully complex and vulnerable in a way that feels honest. I love that she develops real friendships with the other students over the course of the entire book. At no point do relationships feel forced. My absolute character character is Orion, who is low key a himbo. Yes, he's ~special~ because he's the school's strongest fighter, and he's ~kind~ because he uses that talent to save the other children, but he's lowkey a himbo and I am here for it. Pure of heart, dumb of ass. Iconic. ( )

Fun read overall but nothing special ( )