***Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review***
This is Harry Potter meets Leigh Bardugo's Ninth House. There's magic and good vs. evil and a wonderful protagonist who is snarky and fun. I flew through this book and cannot wait for more!

While I really loved it, let's get what I didn't love out the way.

The singling out of dreadlocks as a hairstyle that is dangerous and could be infested with monster, specifically a bug like thing that lays eggs, is racist. Yes, the school is trying to kill them, but it was the only hairstyle singled out and one predominately worn by Black people when the author is white is not a good look. There are probably several other microagressions that I'm just not aware of as a white person. So, just go in knowing there's probably going to be a couple of problematic things. Okay, moving onto what did work.

I read this in barely over twenty-fours hours, which is something I haven't done in a long time. The plot was well paced and fast, the characters were liekable, and I loved El's voice. Her voice and sarcasm were what drew me in and kept me reading. The cram with much world building into a little over 300 pages is an impressive feat. Bravo on that.

It was dark and deadly and gross and monstrous and also freaking hilarious. It made my black heart happy. The comparisons to Harry Potter of course are there and are earned. A deadlier and darker Hogwarts is a very apt description of this book, and though it is being marketed as an adult book, and the tone and voice are adult, it will have crossover appeal to older teens.

I am really upset that I now have to wait for book two, especially with that slight cliffhanger.

This was a surprisingly therapeutic 2020 book for me.  
I play D&D with friends, and in one campaign I play an assassin rogue (soon to be an assassin/barbarian).  Other characters in the group will solve puzzles, talk to people, look for clues.  My character is the one that is turned to when we reach the "eff it, kill everything" stage of things.  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is this book.  
Our heroine, El, is a half-Indian Welsh high school junior trapped at a sentient boarding school. There are no teachers, so it's a "school" in a very monastic, independent study sort of way.  Except the school is also crawling with monsters that want to suck the mana/magical life force out of students.  And graduation means descending into the bowels of the school to make a mad dash past all the biggest, baddest monsters towards the exit.  
Early on in the book, we realize El has the capability and power to turn very evil very, very easily.  Her own family prophesied her as a great destroyer.  Under the influence of her lawful-good mother, she is trying very hard to avoid that.  
The first third of the book follows clique politics pretty closely, but, on the other hand, cliques are a survival strategy here.  After that, I tore through the book and wanted a sequel as soon as it was done.

I may have expected too much from this book. It was poorly executed with its weak writing and stodgy characters. Steadily, reading this became more of a chore than something enjoyable.

Everyone knows the story of Harry Potter and his time in Hogwarts. The friends he made, the home he created. Well this is not Hogwarts, this is Scholomance where every corner holds a deathly lesson. El has survived this long by keeping to herself and keeping a low profile. Until she becomes involved with the golden child Orion and all her plans are destroyed. A Deadly Education is a dark and magical adventure into one of the most dangerous schools you will encounter. Novik gives readers a mature and deadlier version of Harry Potter by taking the perspective of the supposed villain. El is struggling to make it through her education because of her past but refuses to fail. She is smart, witty and vulnerable. She is the outcast sorcerer we have been waiting for. The structure of the book is fluid and follows an unconventional educational outline. With all the freedom the students have, it seemed rather slow when it comes to action. Instead of structured classes and a dark lord, the students have to compete against themselves to succeed. With this premise, I would have expected a little more action and back stabbing to occur, it is "high school" after all.

Thank you to Penguin Random House for the gifted review copy!

This book was definitely not what I expected. The first few pages were okay but after a while I felt like I didn't really understand what was going on. There was a lot of info dumping and there was a lot that I'm still not really sure I understand. I switched to audiobook at some point in the beginning to help me get through the story.

I didn't really like any of the characters. Not the main one or any of the others really. I just never felt connected to them or really interested. I found the story to be really strange too. There were a lot of instances where I was kind of lost and was trying to piece certain things together. I was expecting something with a bit more magic I guess? I also didn't feel like there was much of a story to follow. I wasn't sure where the plot was going until the last 20% or so when things started to actually happen. There were also some comments that made me a bit uncomfortable. The last line in the book made me a tiny bit curious but this overall just wasn't my cup of tea.

Seeing some of the racist language and way of talking about other characters in the book I will not be reading more of this title nor will it be one that I highly recommend to others.

Okay, let me start with this. THIS BOOK IS WEIRD AF!!! I think I barely understood like 40% of the stuff that was going on 😂🙈 I DESPERATELY need a glossary in the next book(s) for all the words and weird creatures because next to nothing is explained whatsoever 😅 Still, the idea is cool and the sarcastic main character and the banter between the students kept me going! But like.. GLOSSARY PLEASE

I have decided not to finish reading this book after discovering a serious microagression directed towards Black people regarding dreadlock.

Um, you're going to need to read this. A dark school of magic, no adults and no way out until graduation, designed to protect the susceptible young wizards from all the malevolent creatures that want to eat them. Despite the heavy spells guarding the school, the students are still in constant danger. Do a perimeter sweep before sitting down at a lunch table; visit the bathroom in pairs to watch each other's backs; hope you make it out alive. Don't get too attached to anyone.

El (short for Galadriel) is in her junior year, surviving just barely - she's a loner, with no real friends to help keep her safe. She's prickly and harboring a secret, and this annoying boy keeps SAVING HER LIFE, damn it. She's going to have to do something about this.

I thought it was brilliant and fun and transporting in the way a story like this should be. The worldbuilding. The character development and the way the tables slowly turn for El, how she come to find her place in the school. It's exciting but also really moving, which is a difficult balance to strike. I was a bit on the fence for Novik’s other books, but can’t say enough good things for the start of her new series.

You know it's bad when the book isn't even out yet and you're already mad the series is unfinished.

I've heard a lot of praises for Naomi Novik's previous works. Close bookish friends always recommend her books to me. That's why I was looking forward to reading this novel when I got the pre-approved digital galley from the publisher. This was my first Novik's book, and maybe I set my expectations too high. I badly wanted to love this book, however, it did not quite work for me.

Reading the synopsis, the premise was really interesting and promising. It seemed to lean toward hight fantasy meets dark academia. The setting was heavily inspired of the Scholomance, a fabled school of black magic which was run by the Devil. There was no doubt that the world-building was very remarkable. It was apparent that the author put massive effort to develop such complicated world and magic system. However, the info-dumping made the pacing too slow. Most times, I didn't really mind info-dumping especially at the beginning of the story since it was necessary to explain the world to the readers. Unfortunately, even the action scenes and between dialogues were interrupted by long expositions. Because of this, the build up and excitement felt bland and flat.

I didn't see much character development. The main character, Galadriel "El" Higgins, was anti-herione. When most protagonists were destined to save the world, El was destined to cause chaos and destruction. She was sarcastic and a little too mean most to everyone so I was not fond of her character. Over time, she grew on me slowly.

Overall, A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik has an interesting premise that I'm sure others will find enjoyable much more than I did. Its cliffhanger ending hooked me for the sequel, so I might pick that one once it is released. If you're curious about this book, I suggest you should give it a try.

3/5 stars!

If Hogwarts was enchanted to run itself but Salazar Slytherin got to do the final round of edits and decided to build in a little Hunger Games — with the odds only ever in the favor of the powerful and privileged — you'd have the basic setting for A DEADLY EDUCATION by Naomi Novik.

Then, generations later, our Slytherclaw protagonist El (who is Welsh and Indian and gives me snarky, darker Katniss vibes) shows up. She is definitely powerful (though nobody knows it). But she isn't privileged. At least not in the way that the major enclaves understand it. She's just trying to survive junior year while keeping the dark powers within her leashed so she doesn't destroy, well, everyone and everything — the monstrous mals who keep coming for her and all the students who happen to be in the way. It's incredibly difficult work, but she's determined. Most days. Except when Gryffinpuff golden boy Orion Lake keeps playing the hero and "saving her life." That gets a little old and makes her more murdery than normal. Still. Head down and graduate. Except ... everyone's odds of graduating keep getting worse and worse...

A Deadly Education is exposition heavy at times with an almost stream-of-consciousness narration, but it's so good! I'm not sure I've read a more detailed, believable account of a system of magic or a magic school. Not only is it a fantastically built magical world, but it's also an international one with exceptional cultural diversity rep and acutely relevant observations about privilege, cliques, personal choices, and more. You wouldn't expect it in such a setting, but there's also a healthy dose of adorkable relationship awkwardness — between both friends and "more" — to lighten the dark humor.

Content notes: death of a parent, both light and dark powers, constant mortal danger, gruesome monsters, inequitable systems of sacrifice and privilege, stabbing, murder, cliffhanger

My thanks to @NetGalley and @delreybooks for a digital ARC.

Naomi Novik has written yet another novel in a well-crafted world populated by a diverse group of characters. The story is told from Galadriel's point of view - a young woman attending a Hogwarts-style school of magic. Galadriel is no Hermione Granger though - she knows she's destined to be the dark queen of the world and will stop at nothing to get there. This book is the first of the Scholomance series and leans a little more on the urban fantasy side then Novik's fans are used to. It is a good novel and a great start. Can't wait to read the second book. I appreciate the ARC.

While the beginning of the book took a minute to really hit its stride, this book was so much fun. Novik sets up a compelling and detailed world that is as amazing as it is dangerous.

The system of magic at the Scholomamce is so detailed, it’s quirks and loopholes are all laid out in an organic and natural way. And the characters! My favorite thing about this book, after the magical school intent on killing everyone, was its characters. Galadriel is such a refreshing divergence from the “good guy” protagonist we’re so used to reading about in fantasy. She’s a complex character and it’s the little things about her that make her so fun to read.

This magical world where young wizards are under constant threat is exhilarating. And that ending! Novik has me hooked. I absolutely loved this book and can’t wait to see where this series goes next.

Thank you Del Ray for the opportunity to read this book!

I stayed up late into the night to finish this! A delightful new take on the rather tired magical boarding school setting. Novik really sticks the landing and I’m looking forward to the second book.

From the publisher: From the New York Times bestselling author of Uprooted and Spinning Silver comes the story of an unwilling dark sorceress who is destined to rewrite the rules of magic.

The Scholomance is a legendary school from folklore that author Naomi Novik has claimed for her own in A Deadly Education, the first book in a new series. I love Novik’s Temeraire series and enjoyed her two fairy tales Uprooted and Spinning Silver as well.

It took me about 80 pages to get into A Deadly Education. I was asking myself who wrote it, as Novik normally captivates me from page 1, and that did not happen with A Deadly Education. However, it finally clicked in, and I enjoyed the last two thirds of the book. I feel I need to start over and see what I think of the first third the second time through.

The world building is amazing if at times a little too detailed. There are definitely info dump passages. There are new vocabulary words that are a little too similar and I could have done with a glossary. The character development is surface level – hopefully we will get to know these characters better in book two. The protagonist Galadriel is a little too stereotypically an anti-hero; the hero Orion is a little too stereotypically a hero.

There is a fun obligatory Lord of the Rings reference for Ringers, and the ending is a shock and a slam dunk and makes me wonder how I can wait a year for book two.

My one big issue with A Deadly Education is that Novik’s main character, Galadriel aka El, is a mean bully. She’s smart, talented, powerful, and resourceful. But she’s also throwing herself a lifelong pity party, which got old with her as the first person narrator, and she is a mean, rude, bully. Especially right now, that strikes a very wrong note with me.

I will read book two for the action and wonder, but I hope El shows some serious growth as a person, and I hope we see character development in the rest of the cast. If you enjoyed Harry Potter and might enjoy reading another series about a magical high school, I recommend A Deadly Education. It’s available at the Galesburg Public Library as a print book and an ebook.

I read an advance reader copy from Netgalley, but I did check the final copy to make sure there was no glossary.

A Deadly Education and I have a really complicated relationship. I was very excited to read this book based on the synopsis, but quickly found myself feeling confused and a bit disappointed. Novik wastes no time with introductions and instead throws readers into the deep end, dropping little pieces of insight as she goes. I usually like when an author trusts the reader to figure things out and be imaginative, but in the context of this book I feel it may have been a bit too much. I wish the author had taken the time to explain some things more thoroughly and give the reader a more complete, structured view of the world she's created. I feel like it's a fantastic, really cool world, but I don't feel I was able to fully appreciate it when left to navigate it entirely on my own.

The writing style was challenging for me as well. The entire book feels like a stream-of-consciousness inner monologue, which took getting used to. The first third of the book also felt very infodumpy, but in a way that I also didn't feel I was learning much. Just like the main character was rambling off about random things throughout her day that didn't add up to anything especially useful or relevant besides giving the reader sideways little peeks into the world in which she lives.

Another frustration is that I struggled to find an overarching plot aside from "survive the school year", which was challenging as a reader. I kept wondering what I was reading for as we repeatedly bounced from one little story to another that seemingly had no purpose or relevance to anything else in the story. For example, our protagonist would spend a chapter focused on an important project that never came up again. In another chapter, she finds herself in an intense battle that, again, doesn't seem to mean much later on in the story. I kept thinking things would come together and have deeper meaning later on... then they just never did.

While I spent most of this book interested in the world but frustrated with the execution, I will admit that the final third of the book redeemed the entire thing immensely. Suddenly (keeping things spoiler-free here) a few things came together and many exciting things happened that I actually enjoyed reading. As far as conclusions go, this one is pretty smashing. I think if that same energy and cohesiveness were applied throughout the book, I would have enjoyed this experience much more on the whole.

As it stands, I can't say whether I will read the sequel or not. I'm a bit on the fence after experiencing such a mixed bag with this one. Part of me feels like this entire book was setting up the future books, which both inspires and frustrates me. Super cool world, interesting characters, questionable execution.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Del Rey Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Included as a top pick in bimonthly September New Releases post, which highlights and promotes upcoming releases of the month (link attached).

Link to the longform review below as well.

Disclaimer: I received a free e-ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I honestly had a very hard time with the beginning of Naomi Novik’s newest novel, A Deadly Education. But based on my experience with her prior work, I kept going and though I don’t think this novel nears the strength of ones like Spinning Silver or Uprooted, I was happy I did.

El (short for Galadriel) Higgins is a student at the Scholomance, a sort of sentient, no-professors-here, boarding school for sorcerers. Students have various tracks of magic, the school presents them with lessons, supplies, and space. Which sounds nice and all, save that the school is filled with lots of monsters (called maleficaria or “mals”) of varying sizes and danger, and so opening up, say, a cabinet in a lab or taking a book off a shelf in the library might see you maimed or killed. And that’s the “good” day-to-day danger. At graduation, the seniors end up in the basement and have to fight their way free of a sea of the oldest and most dangerous maleficaria. Between the daily problems and the big graduation day, as El says, “Most of the time less than a quarter of the class makes it all the way through graduation.”

El herself is powerful, but her power comes from the ability to use other people’s lifeforce, and that, and other reasons, means she hides her abilities from her classmates. She’s a loner and has convinced herself (true or not) it’s by choice. Meanwhile, one of those classmates, the super-powerful Orion, decides it’s his job to keep an eye on her even as he’s saving hundreds of their classmates. Eventually El gets pulled into a circle, though she makes it as hard on herself and her classmates as possible, even as they hurtle toward the near-suicidal graduation “ceremony.” The question is, can she survive both her new “friends” and graduation.

As noted, I had a hard time at the start of A Deadly Education. El’s voice was too YA, too forced-snarky for me. And the first third of the book is also heavily (overly I’d argue) expositive. So I wasn’t enjoying the voice or liking the character, and the plot was constantly be interrupted by info dumps. Thus my problem.

Past the first few chapters, though, the snark starts to get toned down, the explanations are either behind the reader or more lightly dropped in, and it felt (though I can’t swear this is actually true) as if the book moved out of YA style/tone/vocabulary into more adult territory (as vague as that seems and as unintentionally dismissive of YA as that may sound). As El takes her tentative steps out from her circle of one, Novik shows a wonderfully deft manner in presenting true-to-life young anxieties. I could have done without the romance element, but outside of that, the relationships are warmly and realistically portrayed, with each of the characters deepening in tenor and richness.

The plot offers up lots of suspenseful moments and culminates with an exciting and costly battle. Along the way, Novik also drops in some pointed social criticism to add a bit of depth, as well as some lighter and laugh-worthy moments to balance out the darker, more serious aspects. And I absolutely loved the school itself, its oddness, its sense of truly wild magic, its many wonderfully original quirks, none of which I’ll spoil here. Believe me, if you think you’ve seen everything there is to see in a “magic school” story, you haven’t. This take is all Novik.

A Deadly Education still was a bit too YA for me (though I think it will be hugely enjoyed by younger readers and deservedly so), though it certainly grew on me past the first quarter or so, its sharp character insights and fantastic originality rewarding my perseverance.

Boarding schools for the peculiar have been all the rage since a certain bespectacled young wizard achieved global fame, and the latest offering in this genre is A Deadly Education. A YA tale about friends, love and growing up, this charming story has a lot to offer.

When Orion Lake kills a soul-eater in Galadriel ‘El’ Higgins’ dorm room, Orion not only steals her chance to show the Scholomance just how capable El is of defending herself, he waltzes out to receive the glory and accolades, leaving her to deal with the odorous, slimy mess he left behind. That’s when she decides he has to die. She’d forgiven him for dropping an entire lab ceiling on her head a few months earlier while he was fighting a chimaera, but she can’t allow him to keep ‘rescuing’ her. She might not survive the experience. Not only will it make her a target for all the maleficaria (wizard eaters) roaming the school in the hope of making a tasty snack out of the budding sorcerers in the building, it will prevent her from attracting the attention of an Enclave. And El desperately needs their attention. In a world where monsters gobble up the magically gifted, the chances of surviving as a lone enchanter are slim. The more powerful you are, the more delicious they find you, and she’s an alchemic nuclear bomb. Literally. Her magical affinity is world destroying, powerful sorcery desirous of murdering thousands and leveling cities. An Enclave, a banded group of witches and wizards who work together and protect each other, are the only people who could use her talent and thus, are her only chance of survival. Otherwise, once she graduates from the Scholomance, she will attract the attention of all the nasty magic munching creatures out there and will either have to stoop to truly heinous actions to fight them off or surrender to her own demise.

Needless to say, El isn’t excited about either of the latter two options. Gaining the strength to truly work her magic on her own will require pulling malia, a process of stealing the life force (prefarably through torture) of sentient beings (preferably humans). The only other way to gain power is through mana, which can be earned through manual labor or suffering, or joining an Enclave, where power is shared as a group and grows exponentially as a result. Orion has a ton of mana. The son of a powerful sorceress in the New York Enclave, he has a core group of friends, also sons and daughters of New York wizards and witches, who share their magic with him. So why does he seem so obsessed with El?

Initially his interest is more a case of wariness. He believes she’s practicing dark magic and wants to protect the school from her evil. Once it becomes abundantly clear she’s not the guilty party, though, he continues to hang out with her. This is a totally new experience for El because she’s been persona non grata since she arrived at the facility two years ago – she’s ostracised for the weird vibes people get off her, and her less than endearing personality hasn’t helped. But Orion seems to see the caring person behind her snarky repartée and belligerent manners, which is making her feel almost too kindly towards him for murder.

The strengths of this story are the intricate world building, El’s journey of self-discovery and the author’s terrific writing. Ms. Novik has a gift for combining magic and mayhem to deliver a realistic look at human relationships, and for using her tales to examine the importance of having justice and equality in the world. Her smooth, clear prose and strong character building help to create a fascinating story for that worldview to shine through.

El and Orion serve as catalysts for change at the school – and the main reason for that is the change their relationship works in them. Both are freakishly powerful but while Orion has used his gifts for heroism, saving hundreds of lives, El has hidden her abilities for fear she won’t be able to keep them from wiping out the world. Her awkward frenemies relationship with Orion gives her hope and changes her perspective enough that she starts forming some tentative friendships. These aren’t Enclave kids but people like herself, outsiders whose families have had to struggle to survive. The author does a lovely job of capturing El’s growth as she figures out what she really wants from life.

For all that he is the hero of the school thanks to all the lives he’s saved, Orion doesn’t have any real friends. There are sycophants who hang out with him because their possibility of surviving goes up by doing so, but few who treat him as a real person. El does and that refreshing change allows him to share more with her than he ever has with anyone else. From El he gets an idea of what it’s like to live outside the privileged world of the Enclaves, and both of them start to question if the world their ancestors created is really the one they want to live in or if they want to build something better.

El makes a good narrator for our first person account of life in the Scholomance. The daughter of a loving and powerful good witch who is respected by the Enclaves but isn’t a part of them, El knows the intricacies of her world like few others could and eagerly shares every aspect of that knowledge with the reader. This slows the pace of the story at times, making the book a bit heavy in terms of information dumps but the positive aspect of that is that we thoroughly understand why the characters make the choices they do.

Ms. Novik’s fantasy novels always contain a dangerous battle between good and evil, and in this case that gives a somewhat dark, heavy tone to the tale. People die while going to school in this story, especially poor kids who have little magical training, are ill equipped to fight the maleficaria and often have to trade dangerous manual labor in exchange for the tools they need to survive. Kids use other kids as human shields on a regular basis, and to graduate seniors must battle their way through a room of starving monsters. Fortunately, there are funny moments which brighten up the story; I loved El’s dry, sarcastic wit, and El and Orion’s frenemy-ship moving towards budding romance adds joy as well. However, the focus is less on their (possible) love and more about the two of them sharing stories, realizing the unjustness of their world through their joint perspectives and questioning if what is is what has to be.

Which is, I believe, what the author really wants readers to think about as they peruse A Deadly Education. Is the world we live in fair and is it really the world we want? If that question intrigues you, if you are a fan of YA fantasy or of Ms. Novik, or if you enjoy books set in magical schools, then this is the novel for you.