Amazing. Simply, brilliantly, astoundingly amazing. A Deadly Education is Naomi Novik's best novel yet, and I am thrilled it's the start of a new series. Absolutely recommended!

Thanks SO MUCH to NetGalley and the publisher for this review copy!
Well. We know Naomi Novik can write dragon stories. She can write fairy tale fantasies. Now we know she can also kick the heck out of the somewhat tired magic-school story! This was so much more than I expected! This takes the old trope down a pretty dark corner, but I loved it so much! GREAT worldbuilding, I can practically smell the place. Great character development. CRAZY ending cliffhanger! Folks, this one is GOOD! I practically inhaled it whole. Do Not Miss.

A Deadly Education was an adrenaline-fueled ride from start to finish. Some readers may have a hard time connecting with El - she's definitely an "unlikable" heroine - but she's a super=powered sorceress who could probably end the world. No one knows this, but they steer clear of her anyway. Frankly, I found her refusal to adhere to social niceties refreshing! The story does meander at times with quite a few info dumps, but the world and magic system Naomi Novik has created is complicated so that can't really be helped. It really picks up in the back half and with that cliffhanger ending, I'm totally invested in seeing how this all plays out.

At this point, I'm not sure if Ms. Novik is for me. She writes ideas that sounds totally up my alley, from her fairy tale retellings with dark, magical woods to this magic school that is out to kill its students. The strange thing, though, is that I didn't like either of the two books for completely different reasons. But I'm not going to go into detail and compare both books here-- I'm just going to focus on A Deadly Education and why I just couldn't get through it.

My biggest issue with this book is the sheer amount of exposition. I think this is more exposition than any plot or characterization happening. The Scholomance is a very deadly school and Ms. Novik wants you to know it. Every little bit of action or conversation we get is bogged down with pages upon pages of info dumps. I honestly don't know how this got through the editorial process. And for a book that really touts it's deadly school atmosphere, I found myself not being able to become immersed within it due to the info dumps. It was just a very boring place to read about-- I want to see the deadliness, not be told about it.

As for the characters, the story is told through El's point of view, so she is largely the character you'll get to know. She has a lot more characterization to her than the characters in Uprooted, so Ms. Novik improved upon that as I can't call El bland at all. However, El is just very rude and mean. I understand that not all fantasy novel leads are supposed to be likable, and it's good to have exposure to all sorts of characters. But most unlikeable characters have some sort of redeeming or entertaining quality. Maybe they are snarky but it's funny to read about. Maybe they are mean because of poor parenting and have to come into their own. There hasn't been any redeeming features of El thus far and I can't read a book with a character I just don't like. I will acknowledge it's not completely fair for me to judge El as I didn't get all the way through the book, but I can't waste any more time on her. I'd rather read a book about a a character I enjoy.

The other major character is El's love interest, good-hero type Orion Blake. Orion is all right, but thus far he has absolutely zero chemistry with El. It's not a couple I want to ship and continue reading about how they fall for each other.

I know many people are out there looking for a Harry Potter substitute, either to fill the void or to replace it because J.K. Rowling is a horrible person. But I don't think this is it.

Thank you to the publisher for providing a free eARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

My thanks to NetGalley for making an eARC copy of this book available to me.

The setting: a wizard's school that you enter as a freshman. If you survive the next four years and then successfully battle past a room of monsters, you get to leave/graduate. No teachers. The school itself assigns schoolwork and grades the results. Oh, and there are LOTS of monsters roaming the school, large and small, that can easily kill the unwary student. This is NOT Hogwarts!

The protagonist is a junior, and she has been predicted to become the most powerful and evil sorceress of all time. However, she doesn't want to be evil. No pressure. She kind of reminds me of a younger magical version of the main character on the tv show "Dexter".

This book made me laugh out loud at least twenty times, and it had one of the best final lines that I have ever seen. Now we just have to wait another year or so to find out how her senior year turns out.

Naomi Novik has such range, from Russian fairy tales, to alt Napoleonic wars with dragons, and now to a school for magic in the modern day. Part way through, I wasn't sure if this was going to be first in the series or a stand alone. By the end I knew it was the first, and desperately wanted the second then and there, never mind it being past midnight on a work night. It was dark, atmospheric, and creepy, but not scary - I could read it alone that late at night, and I tend to be a wuss about such things. I've already made one person preorder it!

El is completing her junior year at her magical high school, and is understandably starting to get nervous about senior year and graduation. But her school is no Hogwarts. Instead of cozy four-poster beds in dormitories, delicious all-you-can-eat meals, and a sweeping vista of mountains and lakes, Scholomance is a teacher-free zone where students have to learn quickly to stay alive, what with all the evil beasts that feed on magical kids (yes, really) that lurk in the building, including in bedrooms and in the cafeteria's trays of food. Oh, and that view? It's a black void that causes anyone who enters to lose their minds.

El has some amazing (if somewhat potentially evil) powers, which she hopes can help her make alliances to see her through graduation next year — graduation being a literal monster gauntlet to escape the school alive — if only her aloof and sarcastic personality doesn't repel them all. So it's something of a surprise when Orion Lake, the big hero on campus, goes out of his way to pay attention to El. What's that all about?

Novik's creativity in building Scholomance (which is based on a school of the same name in Eastern European folklore) is absolutely amazing, from the classes and creatures to the students themselves. Despite the impossible setting, the characters are nuanced and relatable, even the jerks you don't want to like. I can't wait to see what comes next in this series!

4.5/5

I received this ARC from Netgalley.

I love Naomi Novik. This is the third novel I have read by her and she doesn't disappoint.

This is a dark fantasy about a magical world full of dangerous creatures. The students at Scholomance are always being attacked, and sometimes killed, by the various evil beings that live in the school. Galadriel (El) has been on her own for the first three years of her time there. Her gift makes it difficult for her NOT to turn into a powerful evil magician and she fights it to stay good. Toward the end of her junior year she finally starts to make friends, who help her when all hell breaks loose in the school.

I enjoyed it very much. My only complaint is that the writing, while excellent, is very dense. There are many long history passages of magic. El has several long flashbacks to her childhood. All important information but definitely not a light read. My favorite parts were the dialogues between El and other students, especially Orion and her other friends.

Lastly.... what a cliffhanger!!! I'll be waiting impatiently for the next book!

Thank you Netgalley for an advanced copy of A Deadly Education! Naomi Novik has become one of my favorite authors in the last few years- I love the fantasy worlds she creates with strong female characters. A Deadly Education does not disappoint! A school for magicians which seems to thrive on the phrase “survival of the fittest” actually supports those students with the best alliances. You need someone to watch your back - walking to class, going to the bathroom, even going through the lunch line- otherwise the “Mals” (magical monsters) will kill you. For a loner like El, she’s quite annoyed when Orion Lake keeps saving her life- especially as she can take care of herself! I highly recommend this wonderful suspenseful dark fantasy full of magic and friendship. #NetGalley #ADeadlyEducation

Based on the title and description, I expected this book to be gruesome but I was kind of overwhelmed by the sheer amount of gruesomeness. I like El a lot. She both needs allies but seems to repulse the people around her in a way that's really interesting. I also really like how she could very easily deal with the monsters around her but has a strong enough sense of morality that she's unwilling to risk collateral damage to the people around her. This is a really good book and I'd definitely recommend it to teens that enjoy all the darkness, it just wasn't for me.

I loved this book! I hope she develops a sequel to it because I became immersed in the story from the beginning to the end. It is a little violent so I would only recommend it for young adults and adults.

What a weird, fun book! I went into it knowing who the author was and hearing the buzz around her having a new book and thought, why not give it a try? I'm so glad that I did! I loved this super dark version of a magic school, which held my attention more than just your standard school based fantasy novel. I always enjoy having a female main character that is borderline unlikable, avoiding the easy Mary Sue trope. It wouldn't have been the same. I also liked the writing style, which is different than I am use to. Also, that ending! I should have expected it but I got so drawn into everything else that I didn't. I cant wait for book number 2!

I tore through this one. It was fun, and snarky, and a refreshingly murderous take on the magic school trope. So much fun, and so looking forward to the next installment. Good heavens I love Naomi Novik.

(review on Goodreads :)

A Deadly Education gives us another strong female protagonist from Naomi Novik, someone who is not perfect but who is doing the best she can to stay true to herself. The story takes place during Galadriel's junior year at Scholomance, where surviving the school day is a challenge and surviving graduation takes a team effort. The action and the humor in this story will keep most readers engaged from start to finish. Since it is the beginning of a series. there was a lot of world building and stage setting. However, the story never stopped moving forward and the history of the characters was as action-packed and funny as the rest of the book. Recommended for fans of Harry Potter, Simon Snow and the Magicians.

I really wanted to love this considering how much I love Novik's other work, but there's waaaay too much telling and exposition to the point that I was bored 80% of the time. Also the main character, El, is unlikeable to the point where she's just flat out mean and angry all the time. I feel bad giving this such a low rating but I honestly couldn't get into it.

I. Am. Here. For. This. I loved this so much. It wasn't really at all what I was expecting ( a definite divergence from Uprooted and Spinning Silver), but I loved the characters and the world building in this. It was just so much fun. It definitely had a more YA vibe than I expected and there was a little adjusting to the world and magic at first, since it really just throws you right in. I cannot wait for book 2.

I loved this thrilling, magic-packed new fantasy! Novik brings her exemplary talent for fantasy world-building and writing smart, compelling characters to what is definitely a new favorite series of mine. The narrator, El (short for Galadriel), takes us through her final months of junior year at the Scholomance, a terrifying magic school with *actual* life-or-death stakes. Surviving isn't just about how much power and talent you have, but the relationships and alliances you can (or fail to) build. I adored El and learning about this magic world and school through her eyes. She's a tough and (secretly) thoughtful character who stays stubbornly true to her values, even when those beliefs make her way of life harder. She, and the characters around her, bring up really interesting questions/considerations about good, evil, and survival in a world where most magical things are trying to kill you, and the types of responses and that arise from such a reality. It's great world-building!

I found the magic world really compelling, and I appreciated how it tackled the idea of building/losing magic; there being limits and consequences to using magic made the world feel more realistic and unique. Additionally, while this fantasy features an extremely powerful character in El, she highlights the consequences of holding such power, especially the emotional toll. El's vulnerable moments were heart-wrenching, really endearing her character to me. The secondary characters were great, I loved Orion and Aadhya especially, and it was so great reading about such an internationally diverse cast of characters. There were some moments where El's thoughts were heavy on exposition and magical details, kind of slowing down the narrative, but I didn't mind those personally because I just wanted to learn as much as I could! I can definitely see this being a fantasy crossover title for YA readers and adults.

Novik was so cruel with that ending cliffhanger--I need the sequel immediately!!

After devouring Ms. Novak’s other novels Uprooted and Spinning Silver I couldn’t wait for this. Quite different fro her other novels . This is YA urban fantasy about a misgivings school hidden in a void infested with beasts . World building is incredible and the main characters are complex and show much growth through out the novel

Thank you, NetGalley, for this digital ARC.

This book proves Naomi Novik's talent once again, although it isn't quite as strong as her other novels.

Galadriel (El) is a student at Scholomance, a school for magically gifted youth. The school is a feat of magic itself, floating in a black void; there are no teachers, no breaks, and no such thing as friends in a place where alliances have to be made if you want to make it out alive. Creatures lurk in every corner waiting for their next student victim, and many won't survive graduation, where the final (and only) path to freedom is a battle against the malicious and hungry hoard that sits camped out all year at the school's exit. El is uniquely powerful, a gift (or curse) that she has to constantly keep under wraps; she's strong enough to wipe out any monster in her path...and all of the students in the school. It's a dog-eat-dog world, and El will have to do whatever it takes to graduate Scholomance with her life.

This is certainly one of the most unique magic systems I've read about (and I read my fair share of books with magic). The premise seems contradictory - you don't make friends, but you also don't walk the halls alone; everyone is in constant danger, but the protagonist is super powerful - but it all makes sense and comes together in the world Novik has built. The entire book takes place in a single location, which makes the system and world-building even more impressive.

My biggest complaint about this book is that some of the story gets weighed down by El literally just explaining how things work, like for a while. Direct character-talking-to-the-reader exposition isn't an interesting way to build a world, in my opinion, and I found myself wishing the book would get back to the actual plot. That being said, the last half of the book (and hopefully the sequel(s)) make this not-ideal method of world-building worth it.

El is such an interesting and well-developed character. Closed-off, sarcastic, stubborn, oftentimes downright mean, all for reasons that become more clear as the story unfolds. Her anger gets a little tiresome after a while - we get it, you're a lone wolf - but the journey of her character arc through to the end of the novel is satisfying. Novik uses the side characters to twist some classic tropes into more interesting relationship dynamics.

This is not an "adult Harry Potter." It's something entirely its own, and very different from anything Naomi Novik has written before. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys magic and is up for something a little different and dark.

I’ve heard this book compared to Harry Potter, mostly because it’s a magic school, so I’ll make a HP comparison: A Deadly Education is hundreds of Slytherins and one Gryffindor stuck in an underground bunker where they have to survive monster attacks every single day while learning magic. Once a student enters the Scholomance, they cannot leave until graduation and all they have is what they brought with them. This means that everything has a price, and everything can be recycled into something else. There is no such thing as kindness in the Scholomance, everything is about survival, alliances, and getting ahead.

The magic system is interesting and thorough. Mana is built by human effort and can be stored to be used later. Malia is dark magic and takes no effort, but it steals life from things (and people) around it. This system sets up a class divide between those students who are part of an enclave and enter the Scholomance as a group. Their enclave ensures they have what they need going into the bunker and they have a shared magic store that any of them can draw on. They also have a safety in numbers that doesn’t cost them anything in return and an ensured future ahead of them once they graduate.

Galadriel, or El, doesn’t have any connection to an enclave and must barter and scheme her way through school. She’s incredibly powerful, but her affinity is for dark magic and while others cheat with malia, she can’t because she would end up killing people around her. El is a hard-edged angry individual and while I can’t say that I liked her, I was interested enough to follow her. The side characters and how El grows to care for them is my favorite part of the story. In between all the fighting monsters and scheming there are some emotions other than anger and those are the moments that made this book.

My main complaint about the book is how much telling is going on. This is a complex magic system and a very detailed world, so it’s understandable. But so much of the book was El just explaining things to the reader and it did get bogged down. The characters were also very much “types” and sometimes character actions, especially El’s, got to be annoying. We know you’re angry! Can you maybe make logical choices anyway! That being said, the moments when El becomes more nuanced were worth waiting for, they just were few and far in-between until the last third of the book. The last third of the book is what turned it from a 3-star to a 3.5-star that I felt like rounding up. Both of the issues mentioned I hope will smooth out in the second book since the world and characters are established.

Despite my issues, this was a fun, monster-filled read. A Deadly Education is exactly the book my teenage self would have loved, and there is some nostalgia to reading such an angry protagonist and monster violence in a book. Although it doesn’t quite line up with my tastes anymore, I read it quickly and couldn’t wait to find out what happened. I’ll definitely be reading the second book when it comes out.