A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

Synopsis:

Lesson One of the Scholomance: Learning has never been this deadly. A Deadly Education is set at Scholomance, a school for the magically gifted where failure means certain death (for real) — until one girl, El, begins to unlock its many secrets. There are no teachers, no holidays, and no friendships, save strategic ones. Survival is more important than any letter grade, for the school won’t allow its students to leave until they graduate… or die! The rules are deceptively simple: Don’t walk the halls alone. And beware of the monsters who lurk everywhere. El is uniquely prepared for the school’s dangers. She may be without allies, but she possesses a dark power strong enough to level mountains and wipe out millions. It would be easy enough for El to defeat the monsters that prowl the school. The problem? Her powerful dark magic might also kill all the other students.

This was one of the most highly anticipated books on my TBR list. It has everything I was looking forward to. A school full of magic, action in terms of monsters and survival, and a side of romance (I guessed there would be romance).

The synopsis had me at “Her powerful dark magic might also kill the other students.” In that one sentence, I figured out that the main character was powerful, but refrained from killing other students, and best of all, is female! I love me a strong female character. J

The story follows a girl named Galadriel, but most people called her El. She’s insanely powerful, and her ease with dark magic is unparalleled. Well, at least the characters in the book seemed to be very impressed when they started to have an inkling of the amount of power she carried. She was enrolled in a magic school, Scholomance, which apparently pulls people up into it when the time comes, automatically. What I am appalled by, is how there could be some mundanes (may I comment on how this is a much better word than muggles?) who might show promise and would be pulled up without warning whatsoever! These students wouldn’t have a chance in a dangerous school where all students are more interested in surviving themselves than looking out for them.

Throughout the story, El explains the rules of the school gradually. It was a lot of information and I was glad with the pace Naomi Novik had set. Every chapter reveals a tiny piece of rule that we didn’t know beforehand , but is relevant to what is happening in the story.

The school is basically one huge automated machine that had a mind of its own, well…its magic haha! Assignments are slotted into openings that might injure them if they were late, or just incautious. Going to lunch involved high levels of clique and survival politics, and benefits such as safe showers and travelling come from your ability to attract allies. Everything is based on balance, so like the devil, every favour is always expected to be returned with a favour of similar value.

“You have to ration sympathy and grief in here the way you ration school supplies.”

I loved El’s growth throughout the story, how her values and priority changed along with her perspective. She came into the school planning and scheming each day to survive and manipulate others so she could be offered a place in an enclave. But as the year passes, she made genuine friends, and she realizes how she really preferred being seen as a normal human being to being immediately assumed to be monster.

Her struggle with her morals was so profound, especially when she was raised by a giving and generous mother, one who was recognized widely in the magical world. She slowly started to see her mother’s perspective and she began making friends in the process. Of course, they are all ill-practiced at maintaining friendships, but it was the effort they all made that makes the relationship so much more precious. The little things she hadn’t had before because of a lack of allies could easily tug at her heartstrings and put tears in her eyes when she finally had them, and in the midst of all that emotional growth, her priorities shifted. And from being angry at herself for throwing away opportunities, she started to think she made the better choice.

Orion’s character is fascinating to read. He grew up privileged, yet as misunderstood as El had been. Growing up slightly more enthusiastic in regards to slaying maleficaria, he seemed weird to other people, even people he grew up with. It was this particular notion that lowered El’s walls in regards to him completely. At the end of this book, I wasn’t entirely sure if Orion had become dependent on El’s reliable rudeness and equal treatment of him as a person, and that’s why he wanted to date El, or if he actually liked her. But in retrospect, why couldn’t it be both?

Naomi Novik’s writing left me wanting more from the story and wanting to read the second book without being enraged with the ending. She gave the readers a pretty good set up for the second book in the series, especially with that cliffhanger, but it didn’t make me anxious to know what happens next immediately. That was a really big win in my book 😉

I also love how she describes the characters emotions in a believable, natural way, even in a fantasy, paranormal setting. Due to the circumstances, it was entirely possible for the characters to turn out this way and that brought me into the story that much more easily.

All in all, I loved this book, and cannot wait for the next book!

“She says it's too easy to call people evil instead of their choices and that lets people justify making evil choices. Because they convince themselves that it's okay because they're still good people overall inside their own heads. And yes, fine. But I think that after a certain number of evil choices, it's reasonable shorthand to decide that someone's an evil person who oughtn't have the chance to make any more choices. And the more power someone has, the less slack they ought to be given.”