Enter a school of magic unlike any you have ever encountered.
There are no teachers, no holidays, friendships are purely strategic, and the odds of survival are never equal. Once you're inside, there are only two ways out: you graduate, or you die.
El Higgins is uniquely prepared for the schools many dangers. She may be without allies, but she possesses a dark power strong enough to level mountains and wipe out untold millions -- never mind easily destroy the countless monsters that prowl the school.
Except, she might accidentally kill all the other students too. So El is trying her hardest not to use it . . . that is, unless she has no other choice.
By IrisW
When I read Naomi Novik’s earlier novels Uprooted and Spinning Silver, I thought balancing a historical, Eastern European-inspired setting with fantastical, magical elements was very well done. I wasn’t sure what to expect from A Deadly Education, the first part in the Scholomance series, as it’s something completely different: a contemporary fantasy story, set in a school for magic that inhabits its own pocket dimension. But I was in luck, because the balance between the realistic and the fantastical is possibly even better in this book!
The magic school in question is a sentient construction that has no teachers and can be prickly, sullen and unpredictable. Main character El (short for Galadriel, so named by her hippie mother) is also prickly and sullen, but she has good reason to be. Unlike many of her fellow students, she doesn’t come from a magical enclave able to provide her with resources, and has to work very hard for every scrap of magic. She also has a distinct disadvantage in terms of magical predisposition, because she is wildly talented when it comes to dark magic. El is destined to be a dark overlord, basically, and in order to avoid that fate she has to demonstrate incredible levels of self-control.
For obvious reasons, El is not interested in making friends. But Orion – the pure of heart, dumb of ass type himbo whose specialties to be seem saving people and an oblivious type of kindness – gets under her skin anyway, and the found family is complete once she finally makes a few allies among her fellow students. It was wonderful to see El form a weird little group of her own, and fascinating to get a glimpse into the lives of her fellow students.
This is a highly recommended read for anyone who enjoys ‘band of misfits’ type stories, campus novels, interesting (if unforgiving) magic systems, and the black cat / golden retriever trope.
