I have such mixed feelings about this one! On one hand, I loved El and her arc; she was such an interesting character and I felt for her throughout the entire story. I also really adored the other characters and the world in general. It was all so intriguing and really captured me.

However, this writing style just was not for me. I felt like the entire story—all 300 and some pages—was just constant info dumping. Paragraphs felt long, there wasn’t a ton of dialogue, and new information was constantly being thrown at me to the point of overwhelming. I just don’t think I meshed well with how it was written, even though I did love everything else about it.

Overall, super good read! And that ending really has me yearning for the next book.

Electronic ARC provided by NetGalley.

This is a very weird but very good YA fantasy from Naomi Novik. Imagine Harry Potter, except there are no teachers, you can't ever leave the school, and Hogwarts is actively trying to murder you at all times. El (short for Galadriel) lives in a world where mages are under constant danger from "mals"--magical monsters who want nothing more then to destroy them. The worst part is that mals disproporionately go for adolescent or teenage mages. In a desperate bid to save some of their children, mages created the Scholomance, a school that is basically shunted off into another dimension. The survival rate within the school is higher then the outside, but students still have to use every bit of intelligence and initiative to make it out alive.

El's mother is liked by everyone. El, however, is pretty universally hated. She has a strong affinity for dark magic, and a prickly personality that she has developed to keep people away before they can reject her. She's in her second to last year at the Scholomance, and all she wants is to make it out the other side without resorting to too much dark magic.

The characters and world building in this book are great. In the beginning some things feel like they might be too simple or illogical, but everything has a reason, and characters are always acting in very understandable ways. El is a great narrator, especially as the narrative slowly starts to pick apart her many issues. The school is full of diverse students, with many acknowledgments of the fact that people are learning magic in different languages, and using different methods from all over the world. There are some illusions to potential romance but there is no actual romance in this book.

This is the first book in a series, but is worth reading alone anyways since there is a lot here. The last line of the book is a big surprise, and really makes you wonder about a ton of things that I assume will be explored later on. I'm excited about this series and will definitely be following along.

This book was absolutely phenomenal! I devoured it in one sitting, I could not put it down. For the first time in over a month I forgot to worry about current events and fell completely into Naomi Novik's new world. This is not a book to be missed!

I went into this book completely unprepared for the genius I was about to discover. I loved Uprooted so I assumed I’d love this, but I really had no idea what it was about; I just jumped in. I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve read the last line of a book, gasped, then laughed out loud at the absolute brilliance of it.

The main character, El, is just perfect. She’s wicked smart, snarky, and so funny! She’s the loner teen forced to develop razor sharp survival skills to make it through boarding school. Anyone who’s struggled with making friends will relate to her - I adored her immediately.

I got lost in El’s world at Scholomance and did not want this book to end. Now I’m impatiently waiting for the next book in the series! So good!