A Deadly Education

Library Liberty Zed reviewed A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

It is that good.

5 stars

Content warning Spoiler

The initial exposition of the world may stumble a bit in its execution, yet this is forgivable given the captivating depth of the setting. But this is also due to the fact that the world is uniquely interesting. Regrettably, the world-building occasionally interrupts exciting story points, requiring readers to endure a page or two of the main character's first-person explanation before the actual plot continues. he actual basic story is typical fantasy with a fated superpower and a heroine story. Much has already been said and written about the book and I concur: Recommended. However, I have to add. It ends on a typical newer TV Show trope: The cliffhanger, which is kinda resolved in minutes...and is therefore annoying. For TV Shows I usullay stop in the middle of an episode to avoid this kind of absurd cliffhanger. It's the first time I come across it in a book.

Kadomi reviewed A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

Slow burn

4 stars

This book was such a slow burn for me. Coming highly praised, I came in here expecting a traditional school of wizardry tale. But your HP it is not. It's good though, very good.

Told from first person perspective, our narrator is Galadriel, a sophomore at the Scholomance, a deadly place of education indeed. The students learn magic simply by surviving the many horrors the school throws at them. There are no houses or anything the like, but alliances to make sure you survive your senior year. Students have to fight their way out, through masses of monsters.

Galadriel is a loner though. Secretly, she's one of the most powerful magic-users of the school, but she can only use spells of destruction. As the story progresses, Galadriel has to make alliances herself, and figure out if she and the most prolific monster killer of Scholomance, Orion Lake, are dating or …

This book was such a slow burn for me. Coming highly praised, I came in here expecting a traditional school of wizardry tale. But your HP it is not. It's good though, very good.

Told from first person perspective, our narrator is Galadriel, a sophomore at the Scholomance, a deadly place of education indeed. The students learn magic simply by surviving the many horrors the school throws at them. There are no houses or anything the like, but alliances to make sure you survive your senior year. Students have to fight their way out, through masses of monsters.

Galadriel is a loner though. Secretly, she's one of the most powerful magic-users of the school, but she can only use spells of destruction. As the story progresses, Galadriel has to make alliances herself, and figure out if she and the most prolific monster killer of Scholomance, Orion Lake, are dating or not?

You get zero exposition in the beginning, you're just thrown in, as Galadriel, called El, is saved by Orion. The magic system is a bit mind-boggling at first, and El is a bit of an unreliable narrator, as she's not super-likeable. She's an antisocial introvert. Takes time for her to thaw, took time for me to warm up to her.

It is a creative story, and it successfully breaks the mold of every other wizard academy story out there.

Kadomi@buecher.pnpde.social reviewed A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

Review of 'A Deadly Education' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This book was such a slow burn for me. Coming highly praised, I came in here expecting a traditional school of wizardry tale. But your HP it is not. It's good though, very good.

Told from first person perspective, our narrator is Galadriel, a sophomore at the Scholomance, a deadly place of education indeed. The students learn magic simply by surviving the many horrors the school throws at them. There are no houses or anything the like, but alliances to make sure you survive your senior year. Students have to fight their way out, through masses of monsters.

Galadriel is a loner though. Secretly, she's one of the most powerful magic-users of the school, but she can only use spells of destruction. As the story progresses, Galadriel has to make alliances herself, and figure out if she and the most prolific monster killer of Scholomance, Orion Lake, are dating or …

This book was such a slow burn for me. Coming highly praised, I came in here expecting a traditional school of wizardry tale. But your HP it is not. It's good though, very good.

Told from first person perspective, our narrator is Galadriel, a sophomore at the Scholomance, a deadly place of education indeed. The students learn magic simply by surviving the many horrors the school throws at them. There are no houses or anything the like, but alliances to make sure you survive your senior year. Students have to fight their way out, through masses of monsters.

Galadriel is a loner though. Secretly, she's one of the most powerful magic-users of the school, but she can only use spells of destruction. As the story progresses, Galadriel has to make alliances herself, and figure out if she and the most prolific monster killer of Scholomance, Orion Lake, are dating or not?

You get zero exposition in the beginning, you're just thrown in, as Galadriel, called El, is saved by Orion. The magic system is a bit mind-boggling at first, and El is a bit of an unreliable narrator, as she's not super-likeable. She's an antisocial introvert. Takes time for her to thaw, took time for me to warm up to her.

It is a creative story, and it successfully breaks the mold of every other wizard academy story out there.

Béladozer reviewed A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

Review of 'A Deadly Education' on 'Goodreads'

1 star

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.

chadkoh reviewed A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

Review of 'A Deadly Education' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

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!

ranjit@bookwyrm.social reviewed A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

Fun all the way through

4 stars

A lot of reviewers complained reasonably that the worldbuilding is pretty unbelievable at times, but I was having too much fun to notice.

I loved the big gimmick underlying the whole book: the protagonist has the talents and affinities to be the most powerful and destructive necromancer of her generation - there’s even prophecies about her! - but she was raised by pacifist hippies and works incredibly hard not to accidentally incinerate or mind-control her classmates, building power not by sacrificing animals but through push-ups and crochet.

Michael Gouker reviewed A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

Review of 'A Deadly Education' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

In Naomi Novik's strange world, potentially gifted wizard children are hunted as sources of mana, which they earn through different activities, as varied as crochet, yoga, push-ups, and (in Orion Lake's case) hunting mals, the name given to the evil creatures that roam about trying to consume mages and their children. The protagonist, El (short for Galadriel, her hippie-mom's choice), attends Scholomance, the teacherless, self-aware school created by the wizarding community to help its children survive to adulthood. Scholomance has been for many generations overrun by mals and surviving graduation means literally living through what amounts to a bull run of horrors.

In A Deadly Education, we follow El's progress through her junior year. The story is told in 1st-person with minimal psychic distance, though it is also clear from numerous presumptions that El's perspective is not the only side of the story, even if she doesn't see …

In Naomi Novik's strange world, potentially gifted wizard children are hunted as sources of mana, which they earn through different activities, as varied as crochet, yoga, push-ups, and (in Orion Lake's case) hunting mals, the name given to the evil creatures that roam about trying to consume mages and their children. The protagonist, El (short for Galadriel, her hippie-mom's choice), attends Scholomance, the teacherless, self-aware school created by the wizarding community to help its children survive to adulthood. Scholomance has been for many generations overrun by mals and surviving graduation means literally living through what amounts to a bull run of horrors.

In A Deadly Education, we follow El's progress through her junior year. The story is told in 1st-person with minimal psychic distance, though it is also clear from numerous presumptions that El's perspective is not the only side of the story, even if she doesn't see it that way herself. A lot of other reviewers find her annoying. Yeah, maybe, but she is annoying like young people who are egotistical (most young people) can be, coupled with the practical need to survive. I actually liked El by the time the real story unfolded.

One part of the magical economy that I liked was how language was used to limit the available spells. Mana is pretty much widespread, even if dangerous to accumulate (because it attracts mals), but a wizard needs access to spells, which means they have to study numerous languages. This is one advantage of incorporating a wide variety of nationalities and ethnicities in the story. I also liked the social statement Novik makes about the haves and have-nots of her world.

Pretty amazing story. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series. :-)

Someology reviewed A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

Review of 'A Deadly Education' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

Delightfully fun! I want more, please! The friends who recommended it were totally correct; great book!

colin reviewed A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

It was ok I guess?

3 stars

I've read Uprooted and Spinning Silver and liked those a lot, but this book really clanged for me. I almost gave up on it a few times, but persisted through to the end and found it to be mostly okay. It's a pretty interesting concept for a book (I didn't realize until I was finished that the Scholomance is from folklore) and I could imagine the next book being ok, but I can also imagine that I might not bother reading it.

autumn@bookwyrm.social

rated it

March 22, 2022

yuq

rated it

Dec. 21, 2020

Nils

rated it

Jan 11

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