I *loved* this book. I was delighted from start to finish and it was one of those rare jewels that emerges every other year or so, if you’re lucky, that feels like it came directly from your id to soothe, entertain, and enrich you all at once. I’m excited to give it as a gift this winter.

It is not hyperbole to say she got me on the first line:"I decided that Orion needed to die after the second time he saved my life". Whaaaa? I thought, now here is a riddle I must decode. For those who must re-live high school in fiction, those who are decidedly weird, and followers of all things magical, this book is for you.

I was hooked from the first page — El's voice is sarcastic, prickly, and so much fun to read. The world is complex but all the parts are meaningful to the storytelling, and the focus on friendships (over romance) was a refreshing choice. Can't wait for the sequel!

This is one of my few (or the only) five-star reads for 2020. I cannot praise it highly enough!

All the summaries you see are true (dark feminist Harry Potter, magical school but with no adults, dangerous creatures, dark magic, enemies-to-lovers trope, etc) but yet it is so much more than that. There's questions of identity, the politics of personal relationships, a hint of steampunk. Mostly there's just a really cracking good story. I read it all in one giant gulp because I couldn't focus on anything else until I knew how it ended.

For my tastes, there was just the right amount of world-building: it doesn't painstakingly tell you every detail of how magic works, but you're not left flailing in a sea of unexplained terminology. It felt natural and real.

El is a fun narrator; matter-of-fact, wry, somehow lovable even when she's being annoyingly stubborn.

I really enjoyed this one! It was just the fantastical escape I needed during such stressful times. Will recommend for reading and purchase!!!

Ended up loving this by the end! I had a hard time at the beginning as I found El to be annoying and over-the-top rude but her character mellows out and her rudeness becomes more sarcastic and playful. She felt more real later in the book to me. I loved the description of the school and the introduction of so many new evil creatures. I loved the premise and the struggle El has all the time to not cross the line and use mal which would be so easy for her. Can't wait for the next book!

I don't love that this is my cultural reference point, but here it is:
A Deadly Education is like if Hermione was the protagonist, but a Slitherin, and a destined Big Bad (but she doesn't want to be).
Gal is fierce. Her great grandmother gave a prophecy about her that has skewed her life, but her mother has always been dedicated to her and to living a mana-based life. No 'cheating' magic for this family! No seriously -- Gal's affinity for deadly and destructive magic means that she can't ever use malia, which draws power from the lives of others or she really will become a Big Bad.
Whisked away to the Scholomance, as the majority of magic-using children are from the ages of 14 to 18, Gal has spent most of 3 years looking for her big break -- a way to show off her magic without killing a whole bunch of other students. Then she'll receive the accolades -- and protection -- she's always longed for. But stupid Orion Lake keeps bungling into her way and killing the mals (monsters that want to eat up all the tasty magic-gushing adolescents) she had in her cross-hairs. So she may as well make use of him while he's here.
Between the forging of alliances, and actual friendships, and the encompassing world-building of Gal's observations and safety-tactics in the school which is /absolutely/ trying to kill everyone, the story is chock full of humor, horror, action, and heart.
I am very much looking forward to book 2!

In a Harry Potter meets Hunger Games, this is a tale of a magical school or witches and wizards. Monsters are highly attracted to magical adolescents and to keep them safe, the teenagers are locked in a school. However, there are no holidays, no visitors, no teachers, and they are under constant threat of attack,. When it comes time to graduate, they have to fight their way out. El, is a witch gifted with the powers of destruction. She's a loner and who needs to make strategic alliances to ensure her survival.

This book was fantastic. Unlike Hogwarts, Scholomance is not my dream school, but it is fun to read about.

A Deadly Education is a book that takes place at a magical school, which might lead to comparisons of Harry Potter, but this is very different, including the fact that this is for adults! As the name implies, the magical school here is very dark and dangerous, involving things like voids in rooms. If you pass, you get to live. If you fail, you die! Due to this, it had more of a dystopian feel.

The main character here was a lot of fun, I enjoyed the change in that she has a propensity for darkness, and was just so prickly and unlikeable, and yet her struggles with feeling isolated from other students made her still feel relatable.

This story is dark, fun, and wonderfully written. Fans of Novik’s previous books will love this, but it’s also different so if her past works didn’t work for you, I still recommend giving this one a shot.

Naomi Novik's novels have always had a YA vibe, but without any of the fluffy stuff that I dislike in YA titles. A Deadly Education is no exception and I LOVE IT. Reading this was almost like reading a smarter, darker HP written for adults. I so hope this turns into a series because I desperately want to be re-immersed in this book's world again.

I LOVED this book. L.O.V.E.D. Loved it. I've never read anything by Naomi Novik, something I'll need to remedy post-haste. This book had all the perfect things: magic, magic school, edgy/awesome main female character, depth, an incredibly intricate magic world, vivid descriptions ...

I'm a huge fan of YA boarding school-type books, and toss in some magic, and I am usually right there. This book didn't go fluff, a la "Harry Potter," this book went pretty hard DARK. This was really the key to making this book incredibly unique - the fact that a YA magic book can get beyond the fluff and actually insert some actual dark stuff, while still being incredibly readable. I got vibes of the kind of dark that "Vita Nostra" gives (though obviously this book is YA, so it doesn't get too too dark, like "Vita Nostra"), which is a fantastic book.

The world itself is also what kept me hooked. The type of magic, how it is used and created, how the crazy magic school works, all of this was the first time I'd seen a lot of it. The school is something else - it's like a vertical machine that rotates the floors to the next lower level via cranks and gears (but also magic), and each floor is a year of study (i.e. freshman, sophomore, junior, senior). The closer students get to the bottom, and graduation, the more crazy monsters wait to consume the students, and also break in a lurk all over. It's like a survival of the fittest, and all students are super aware of their mortality. There are no teachers, but the school knows when you've done your work, showed up for class, cheated, and will punish you accordingly. There are different learning tracks, El's (Galadriel), is language/incantation, and if she so much as glances at a piece of writing in a language she hasn't learned yet, the school decides she is learning it and assigns her next work in it. And she can't advance until she learns it. Crazy.

And the monsters themselves are the stuff of nightmares, truly creative, horrific creatures. The school is basically trying to kill you. Each student must be constantly aware of their surroundings, dark corners, vents in ceilings, nearness to stairwells, and the cafeteria is something of a gauntlet. The world itself is so unique and creative, I just want to see more.

I found the pacing and the plot to be perfect, even El's introspection really helped add so much depth to her character. She isn't the normal wallowing, self-pitying, type of loner, there are all kinds of things going on inside of her, her past, how students bully and treat her, and through all of this, she fights hard to keep from turning into a dark magic user and essentially feeding on life to further her cause - she knows it'd be easy, but she knows morally she isn't dark. The book touches on bullying, classism (students in enclaves are afforded more luxuries and opportunities, and more likely to survive with groups of people backing them up and giving them the resources they need), loneliness, self-growth, and basic right vs. wrong. El learns how to be vulnerable, enough to let people get near her, whereas she always assumed the worst before and treated others with insults and sarcasm. But she's powerful, really really powerful, and it'll be interesting to see how that plays out in sequels going forward.

I realize I didn't say much about Orion. It's actually really refreshing to read a YA book where the boy is pretty much wallpaper, in a way that is a nice background, but doesn't really muck up the story or turn the awesome female protagonist suddenly stupid. He's like a robotic hero, just doing what he does to save everyone's life, but he's also lonely in his own way. He befriends El in a weird way, and eventually they grow closer, but is that going to lead El somewhere dark? We shall see ...

This was one of my most anticipated reads and Naomi did not disappoint! This book was full of magic and mystery and I couldn't put it down!

I have read almost every single one of Naomi Novik's books from the adventures of Temeraire and Will Laurence to her enchanting fairytale stories that I devoured in one sitting, BUT <i>A Deadly Education</i> is her best work so far. A couple of months ago, I requested this book on NetGalley and struggled to start it, but the moment I did it was impossible to put down. It only took me a day to finish because I accidentally took a nap in the early evening, woke up around 11 p.m., and continued reading until 2 in the morning because I just couldn't stop!

Galadriel 'El' Higgins attends Scholomance, where magic wielders learn to hone their craft or die. With no teachers, El along with her fellow students are focused on a single goal: to survive the terrible creatures known as the maleficaria or mals that lurk the school. The only way to escape is to graduate, but graduation is a fight to the death against a multitude of mals, who wait for the senior class to make their exit. Therefore, all the students spend their formative years preparing for this epic battle by building stores of power, forming alliances, and honing their abilities.

El, however, has several problems. The first takes the form of a heroic and mostly moronic boy named Orion Lake, who keeps saving her life. Orion prowls the corridors of Scholomance looking for mals, saving lives, and earning a reputation as a valiant protector, who is held in high esteem by the whole student body. Well, except for El, who is beyond irritated with the antics of Orion as she tries to prove herself and earn an alliance. El, however, has an even bigger problem. She is extremely powerful, but her magical affinity leans towards destruction and darkness. As a result, El stays away from other students to avoid accidentally using their life force but this earns her a reputation as a loner, which can be deadly in a school where alliances protect you from the monsters waiting in the dark.

Novik's characters and wordbuilding are absolutely phenomenal. El has the driest sense of humor and her sarcasm really makes her perspective entertaining despite the bleak situation. This is carefully balanced against Orion, who is just a giant puppy, and takes everything at face value, which means he often falls for El's dark wit and it creates some truly hilarious moments. These two personalities work well together to create some top-notch dialogue and exchanges, which only makes the reader fall in love with the characters as they bicker constantly.

While some may not like what could be construed as infodumps, I think it works well to flesh out the world and give insight to El's character. At first, El comes off as a prickly cactus but as the story delves deeper into the world through her eyes, I began to understand and sympathize with her choices and demeanor. This was not an easy feat since most readers could dismiss El as rude and overly aggressive, but Novik uses her world to show how El is more than her thorny exterior. There were so many moments that made me remember what it felt like to be a teenager with no friends and Novik touches on these themes in heart-warming ways.

However, what continues to astound and impress me about Novik's books is the amount of thought that goes into her worldbuilding. Not only is the concept of the Scholomance different than any other magical boarding school story I've read, but Novik takes this genre and reinvents it in a new and exciting way. Her incorporation of ancient languages, her magic building, high-school cliques—sorry alliances— and murderous monsters is completely spellbinding and creates some truly high-stress moments, where all you can do is read. I desperately cannot wait to read the sequel but it does pain me when I realize this is an ARC and I have to wait even longer. There are so many implications and exciting prospects, which I cannot wait for Novik to explore even more in the sequel.

El is just your normal teenager, dealing with the popular crowd and trying to survive school....literally. With a giant black void in her dorm room (where does it go??) and monsters hungry for her magic, El is a somewhat typical student at the Scholomance, a school for sorcerers in Naomi Novik's first YA book. And while certain comparisons to other magical schools may be tempting, it is much better to view A Deadly Education as it stands on its own. The Scholomance is a school primarily built to protect the children of enclaves - groups of sorcerers who have banded together in what I picture as a very particular type of HOA - but other, non-enclave kids like El still get swept up and given a mostly self-driven education in subjects like alchemy, languages, and how to survive all the monsters that feed off magical energy.

And the enclaves is what gives A Deadly Education the running thread underneath El's story. It is a look at systems of privilege - how they are built and how they are sustained, whether actively or passively, through generations. And El, powerful, with a dark prophecy hanging over her head, trying to not fulfill that prophecy, is a challenge to these systems, and may be the one to change the Scholomance.

When I got this book I think I was still expecting something more similar to her other books that I had read before this, Spinning Silver & Uprooted, that I absolutely loved. I did enjoy the whole twist where your main character has an affinity for powers of darkness and is attending a school where you either pass and survive, or fail and die.

The world building in this story was great but the pace of the story just seemed to be rather slow for me at times. Things just seemed to drag on at times because it felt like way too much information was suddenly dumped on the reader. However by the end of the story I was definitely hooked and I am greatly looking forward to reading the next book in this series.

A Deadly Education is set in a magical school, but Hogwarts this is not. Scholomance is an intense, no breaks, no extracurriculars, no teachers school which gives magical children more of a chance to grow up than not - but it's just a chance. Add one sarcastic misfit and one solitary golden child, and sparks literally fly. Appearances can be deceiving, whether a 'too good' smile, or a system that's taken for granted. Proceed with caution - and enjoy!

I love a good fairy tale retelling, and was introduced to Naomi Novik through her fantastic books, Uprooted and Spinning Silver. A Deadly Education is a different read: it's darker, snarkier, and more cynical.

The novel is told from the perspective of prickly, guarded, unlikeable Galadriel (but please, call her El), a student at the Scholomance, a school of magic that's as likely to kill you as it is to graduate you. She might be a dark wizard-in-training, whether she wants to be or not, but she's also isolated from her fellow students and struggles to survive. Her nemesis is Orion Lake, the golden "hero" of their class who is from a privileged position in an enclave, which means he has more connections and resources than El. There are strong themes of class and privilege in this book. El both desperately wants the safety of belonging to an enclave, and is increasingly disgusted by the way that system abuses those at the bottom.

The book starts slower because of all the world building, but by the end it's so fast paced, I was reading until 4am because I couldn't put it down. There were a few too many info dumps, but they were usually interesting, so I won't knock off a star for that.

I loved this book, and would recommend it to readers of YA fantasy, readers who like strong female characters, and those who like coming-of-age fantasy stories. I can't wait for the next in the series!

I had a hard time getting into Novik's Uprooted, but that was never an issue with this title. I read 1/2 it one sitting and couldn't wait to have time to go back and finish. The world is real, darkly magical, and not like any other school of magic. I love El and her friends and can't wait for the next in the series.

Naomi Novik knocks it out of the park again! I'll start off with the inevitable disclaimer. I hate YA school of magic books. (Harry Potter is an excellent way to knock me out for surgery or whatever.) BUT I actually really enjoyed this one. I mean seriously, kids just end up dead and things are attacking people out of nowhere. It really grabs you by the cheeks and makes you stare it in the face for its entirety.

This is the first in Novik’s new Scholomance trilogy, where she spins quite the dark and compelling tale about a boarding school for students with magical powers. Danger doesn’t exactly lurk around every corner as much as it seeps in under the door or sneaks onto a lunch tray, and the seniors only look forward to graduating with the hope that they can survive the ceremony.

The story is told from the point of view of Galadriel, or El, who isolates herself to protect everyone from her darker impulses. Orion is a bit of a nemesis to El, in that he keeps saving her life and those of fellow classmates, something that causes a few unexpected problems.

The name of the game at the Scholomance is survival of the fittest, and it’s nearly impossible to know just who you can trust. On the other hand, going it alone might not be a viable solution either, no matter how much El would prefer it.

I’d recommend this to readers who enjoy strong female protagonists, suspenseful storylines, and masterfully constructed fantasy worlds. The unexpected ending will have readers clamoring for the next book.

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for access to an advance copy of this book.