We all have to gamble with our lives in here, we don't get a choice about that; the trick is figuring out when it's worth taking a bet.

Where do I start with this book?

First, I loved this book. I was intrigued from the start, I had no idea where this book was heading and couldn't wait to find out. The school, the magic, the monsters, the students, all of it was fascinating.

Second, El. El is an outcast with a terrible prophecy hanging over her head. She spends a lot of her time doing everything in her power to avoid fulfilling it. The school likes to make that difficult by giving her all the death spells one could ever want (or not want in El's case) when all she asked for was a simple cleaning spell to get the the monster guts off her floor. She has a hard exterior with lots of inner turmoil, but really she just wants to survive her education and be accepted by others.

We progress through El's junior year learning about her past and watching her hopefully form much needed alliances for survival. El ends up getting saved on more than one occasion by the unofficial hero of this junior year class, Orion Lake. El and Orion have led drastically different lives, but manage to work together (albeit a bit reluctantly at times) to save not only each others lives, but many of their classmates as well.

Through class assignments, homework in the library, surviving the cafeteria line and the more than occasional monster slaying we watch as the students of The Scholomance make it through to the end of the year or die trying.

Lastly, my one and only complaint is that I am going to have to wait so long for the next book in this series.

Galadriel, or El for short, is a typical awkward junior in high school struggling to find out who she is,negotiate the social perils of cliques, finish her projects on time, decide if she likes the popular, but goofy guy who follows her around, and survive until graduation. Standard teenage angst - with an evil twist. Naomi Novik’s new title, “A Deadly Education”, is set in a diabolical and exclusive boarding school for the magically talented. The school is devoid of adults and teachers, but infested with malia - countless monsters of every horrible size, unspeakable shape, and gruesome power. The hordes of malia appear in lunchrooms, slip from under beds, lurk in dark hallways, pass through vents and walls, and are all intent on one goal - killing the students before they can re-enter society and join one of the “enclaves.” El is blessed, or cursed, with strong, dark magic of cataclysmic proportions that could easily wipe out a large city, but casting a simple spell to mop up her floor proves difficult. Magic is not free in this world, sorcerers must spend mana or power to work magic, and El grew up ‘poor’ as an ‘indie’ in Wales living outside the safety of an enclave in commune. El has only two more years to gain an impressive enough magical reputation to be invited into a major enclave. Unfortunately, she lacks the mana she needs or the useful friend groups and alliances that would help her succeed.

The story’s progression seems to be stymied by constant waves of malia attacks on almost every page.Should she draw the power from other living creatures? Can she defeat the malia hellbent on killing her? Will she find other students who will align themselves with her to form a posse? And will the hallowed Orion-the-monster- killer ever leave her alone? Does she want him to leave her alone? The conundrums of being seventeen with few friends in a world that wants to eat you.
“A Deadly Education” will appeal to YA readers who thrive on the tropes of magical boarding schools, but it may be less captivating for those who have happily left the drama of high school behind. Noviks’ previous works are not tied to a specific age group, so “A Deadly Education” may introduce new, younger readers to her considerable talents, but could disappoint others. A clever twist on the last page, however, should serve to entice everyone to put Book #2 on their TBR list, and return to the start of the next school year at Scholomance. (I want to thank NetGalley for letting me read an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest, unbiased opinion.)

I’m starting to think Naomi can write anything and be good at it. This book was a big change from her other work, but I loved it just as much. El’s voice was super entertaining, and it was great to get to know her more and more as the book progressed. I can’t wait until the next!

Galadriel (El to her friends, of whom she has none) is just trying to survive. This is difficult because she has a year and a half left in the Scholomance, an extradimensional dungeon full of monsters which is somehow the best way to train young magicians. Recently, student deaths have plummeted due to the heroics of Orion Lake, your typical Chosen One. El herself is destined to turn evil and plunge the world into darkness, a role she strenuously (albeit grumpily) resists. The pair's constant sniping could lead to a useful alliance (much more practical than a romance) if they can avoid being eaten. Super fun world-building.

I am such a fan of Naomi Novik after Uprooted and Spinning Silver. I saw her speaking at a book panel earlier this year talking about this book and I couldn't wait to read it.. As always she does not disappoint. I love her heroines who defy expectations and take control of their stories. And Galadriel "El" is just the best anti-heroine. She's pragmatic, snarky and doesn't let other people's ideas of how things should be sway her from her goals. She is prophesied to be a powerful dark sorceresses and she's not going to let that happen. Her clash with the school's golden boy Orion "cause she does NOT need to be saved" is just so much fun to read. This book was compelling, and scarily fun. I cannot wait for the story to continue. I will absolutely be recommending this book to all.

I really enjoyed this book. The setting was awesome. The characters were well drawn. I have enjoyed her last few books - this one is a bit different - but I really enjoyed this one as well.

I'm a huge Novik fan. I uphold her as an example of what happens when someone puts in the work to tell thoughtful stories and develop their craft. Unfortunately, it seems she's come out on the other side of that continuum, and has written a self-indulgent, overly precious slog of a book.

The premise is interesting--a school that's bent on killing its students, a handsome but overbearing hero, and a grouchy and begrudgingly powerful sorceress in the middle of it all. Uprooted and Spinning Silver are dark, rich, beautifully told stories. I was so excited to see Novik's take on this concept--I expected it to be exciting and fanciful and vivid, like her other works.

A Deadly Education, by contrast, is hampered by absolutely constant editorializing and description. The premise is complicated, sure, but the first chapter is a massive info-dump during which absolutely nothing happens except El, the narrator, explaining her world to the reader. I assumed once I crossed that hurdle, the actual story would begin. But action sequences, and conversations, and literally anything else that happens is couched in massive paragraphs of context. Even as El is walking into the mouth of an enormous flesh-eating monster, she's describing the history of the monsters, and how her mom feels about them, and how they live at school, and on and on and on and on. This book is like a 300-page stream-of-consciousness description of this school and El's family history with little snippets of story thrown in around it.

I found myself skimming massive swaths of this book because the pages and pages of information weren't relevant to what was happening. There's absolutely a situation of "too much of a good thing" here. Novik seems so in love with the world she created that she neglected to actually do anything with it. An info dump in the beginning of a book is surmountable. An entire book that's just an info dump is not.

This is tonally and structurally completely different than her recent work and has more in common with Temeraire in that it's slow and meandering as hell. Obviously she's gotten to the point in her career where she can write anything and someone will publish it, and that's great. But this could have been a sharp and interesting story with some serious cuts, and it is instead absolutely the opposite.

Another stupendous book from Novik! Yes, the magic school elements evoke Harry Potter, but don't be fooled. Fascinating world, great character development.

Imagine if Draco Malfoy decided to team up with Harry to to fight monsters, expect Draco is a girl and is actively trying to defy the odds stacked against her and a good person. Darkly magical and suspenseful with an unlikeable but sympathetic hero you're root for.

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 ...