~NET GALLEY REVIEW~

Ok this second book is so much better than the first. and I'm excited that a third one is coming. El was a way more grounded character this round - I mean yeah, she had her moments of doubt, but who doesn't? I loved that the story was centered more on the politics at play than budding romances. Other things I loved: The gym obstacle courses, the gym in general, Precious, freshmen paired with seniors, the school taking on an identity and all the things El is capable of. Things that I would get a little annoyed by: Not having enough backstory for characters outside of Lake, Liu and Aadhya. It was hard to keep up with the enclaves forming and working together while attempting to distinguish if they were a casual mention or sticking around more substantially. Also sometimes it felt like monsters/school details were add ons instead of blended into the story more. Like a "and did I mention this? and this? oh and it does this and this too," situation.

But at the end of the day I was entertained. Still a fascinating plot and can't wait to see what happens next.

WHAT.

Okay, now that I’ve got that out of my system, what a wild ride. I love the plot, I love our heroine, I love our cast, I really do love this book, maybe even more than the first one. The plot twists weren’t so much twists as they were moments of, “oh duh, how did I miss that?” Naomi Novik is just that good. The character development was wonderful, and I appreciate how tropes were turned on their heads.

One thing that I still can’t get used to, however, is the info dumping. I feel like we’ll start an action, and then spend four pages on the background of that action and maybe a flashback, and then go back to that action unceremoniously. I feel like I missed parts of this book trying to decipher which parts were background, flashbacks, or the present. It’s not something I think I’ll get used to, but it really says how much I love this story and these characters that I’m absolutely all in for the next book in the series.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for this ebook. All views stated here are my own and given freely and honestly.

This series has been an automatic buy for me. I am impatiently waiting for the next volume since reading the last line.

Naomi Novik continues to be one of my must-read authors and does not disappoint with the second book in the Scholomance trilogy! Characters are well-developed, action is continuous without being overwhelming, and the development of both the main cast and the school itself keeps me engaged. Can't wait for the finale!

I really liked this book! Sequels are always tough when the original is so good but this was an even better follow up to A Deadly Education. The ending was wild and now I need the third book!! Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the arc!

Novik’s second installment in The Scholomance Trilogy was even less enjoyable to me than the first, though the first did not connect with me very well, either, and I certainly did not find it stunning. El has to be the worst, least sympathetic main character I’ve ever read. She’s not only cranky perpetually, but she’s so self-righteous and stuck up that I almost dnf’ed because of the preachiness and constant complaining. She does not improve, either. No matter the connections she makes with other characters, she is still the same churlish, cantankerous snot of a person.

The book quite obviously consists of two parts: classes in the first half and final mal battle for graduation in the second. With no really side plot going on and our main story consisting of what our self-righteous narrator, El, is going through, The Last Graduate really just gives readers more of what A Deadly Education does, with the exception of a more fully developed relationship with her fellow students and her most illustriously stupid meat-wall love interest, Orion. I can’t stand himbos. They’re a hypocritical caricature of everything feminism hates women being stereotyped as. Somehow, they’re acceptable. I don’t think they should be.

The best part of the plot is the end, which gives readers a huge cliffhanger and propels them through to the next part of the trilogy, which is a cheap trick in my opinion. I’m so disappointed with this series; Naomi Novik has been such a great storyteller for me to pick up with her last two novels, Uprooted and Spinning Silver. I had such high expectations for this. I feel I may have let myself down a bit, since they were my expectations and not the author’s, but after a while, I have come to expect a certain amount of increase in skill from writers, and I did not get that here.

#naominovik #thescholomancetrilogy #thelastgraduate #delrey #ballantine #randomhouse #randomhouseaudio #lgbt #yafantasy

I love this book! What a wonderful follow-up do A Deadly Education. The Scholomance series is one of the best series I've ever read! It's like a grown up, dark, awesomer version of Harry Potter. It's so good and I cannot wait for the next book!

What an ending! Makes you want to scream and then immediately look for the next book.

This book picks up right where the last one dropped off. The students of the Scholomance have no summer breaks. El and the gang have successfully survived the cleansing and are looking forward to the potinal of having an easier graduation if everything went to plan. The thing is though nothing ever goes to plan. The Scholomance has different ideas and El is the key to finishing them.

This book series has great world building and the relationship between El and Orion is so cute and seems realistic for the situation that they are in.

While this book can be slow paced at times it still enjoyed myself. It fet like I did not know what was happening most of the time but that didn't matter as much as the vibe the book gave to me and how I felt while reading it.

Final thoughts: I will definitely pick up the thrid one to finish the story out, these YA chifhangers are something rough!

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishers for the Advance Reading Copy.

What a cliffhanger. The story follows a girl at her high school which is unlike another school. The school floats in a void and there are no teachers or adults. All the kids have the ability to work magic and their goal is to make it to their senior year to make the sprint through a field of monsters to graduate and return home. They have to navigate homework, spell work and politics along with killing and avoiding monsters to survive. Our Mc along with a few friends and her boyfriend devise a plan after an extremely harrowing first semester to save all the kids not just their group or the seniors and trap as many monsters in the world into the abandoned school. They manage to get everyone on board and the plan goes almost according to plan except one student who gets left behind.
This was a bit of a slow read for me but was an interesting story. I would rate it at a 3.5. It felt like it jumped around sometimes or was slow with not much happening but there were still many parts where I couldn't stop reading. I will continue the next book to see what becomes of them all.

Wow that ending was crazy. Honestly I’m speechless. This definitely to me wasn’t as good as the first book but it was still good. Now to wait for book 3! I don’t want to ruin anything so this is all I will say. Wow,

*thank you to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

The Last Graduate is the middle book in the Scholomance Trilogy and had more of everything I loved in the first book. A prickly unlikeable main character and her himbo, monsters, impending doom, and a giant cliffhanger. Can't wait to see more of life outside the Scholomance in The Golden Enclaves.

I absolutely loved A Deadly Education, it was my favorite book of 2020, and I reread it an unhealthy amount of times while waiting for this sequel. As it happens when I over fixate on a piece of media, I spent a lot of time thinking, theorizing, and writing fanfiction about it, so you can bet my expectations were higher than the empire state, which led to a major slog during the beginning of the book: it wasn't anything like I thought it would be.
The Last Graduate wasn't planned, Naomi said she was writing the conclusion to the series and realized she needed a book to bridge the other two, so a trilogy was born. And, for the most part, this is very much a middle book (we all know and - sometimes - hate them), and I was scared it would suffer from middle-book-syndrome, meaning it would do a lot for the world-building and character development, but not much for the plot. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The build-up is slow and subtle, but it is well-crafted and led to one hell of a conclusion.
HOLY HECKING GUACAMOLE!
I knew I was in for a big cliffhanger, but I think what should have given away how downright evil it would be was chapter 13, which was as sweet and emotional and awkward as you could expect of the two human disasters who lead the series. So, per the basic principle of balance - as El loves to tell us - no good can exist without the same amount of bad, thus we got the most shocking cliffhanger in a YA I have ever seen.
It's going to be a very long wait until the next book. A very very long wait.

I've realized this is not the series for me. I liked the first book well enough but for some reason I felt like this was a knock off of other books I've read before. I really wanted to like it but it's just not for me. I have recommended it to several others who I knew would enjoy it and sure enough they did like the series very much.

The Last Graduate is some how even better than the first book in the series. This sequel was everything I needed in a great fantasy book. I will forever recommend this series to everyone! I immediately needed book three after finishing this. The book hang over was strong with this one. This book is still one of my favorite reads of 2021. I anxiously anticipate the third book!

What else could possibly happen at the Scholomance? Oh yeah besides maybe being eaten by a monster during any given time. But things are getting a little crazier and more dangerous. El is in her last year and she is getting ready for the dreaded graduation. She has an awesome alliance, her two very awesome and bad a** friends, a new pet mouse, and oh thinks are developing with Orion. But right no she needs to focus on how to get everyone out of graduation alive. Can they possibly do it? Can she get one she dreams about doing after graduation?

What I LOVED:
- I just love this series SO much. The dark academia setting! The world building is excellent. I love the magic concept in this series as well
- El and Orion and their developing friendship! Or shall I say possible romance? 💖
- The pacing is so well done and I was never bored
- Everything! Seriously I wasn't lying about this being one of my favorite books

Now that ending...I am deceased. I will gladly bury myself and resurrect when the third book is out. What a doozy! I was shocked, and it took days to process my feelings on this one. Once again the author has kept me on my toes. I recommend this book to any fan of fantasy! You will not regret this dark academia, magical book. 5 stats out of 5!


Thank you Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review! Also, many thanks to the publisher Random House Publishing Group!

This book was so good! The transition from the first to second book was done really well. I was enamoured with the whole story and I can say I was very invested to see how things would go. I can’t wait for the third book!

All the stars🌟⭐


Have you ever read a novel who managed to grip you in and wouldn't let go no matter what? Yes! The Last Graduate was so good that I was in tears and invested. I was on edge of my seat most of the times as I was so scared of the mals and other creatures while reading this novel. This novel would go down as one of my favourites and the best novels out there.

The growth of the characters are so spot on that I am in glee.

Also looking forward to its adaptation to the big screen because we all know that El, Orion and the rest of the gang deserve it.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the Publisher for granting me an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My only post-read thought: ORION YOU SICK SON OF A GUN. I love this series--it's hard to find a good fantasy series that checks all my boxes, but this one has kept me on the edge of my seat since the release of book 1. So imagine my pleasant surprise when my wish was granted by the publisher to read book 2 (thank you thank you)! Naomi Novik's writing style is so uniquely /her/, and I'm so drawn into the Scholomance world she's created. I cannot wait to see what happens in book 3 (and if THAT cliffhanger doesn't get resolved by chapter 3 there will be WORDS).

Novik has taken the premise set up in the first book and continued the storyline smoothly, creating interesting character and world building development in this second volume. The tangential asides and monologues are stronger here and do become frustrating at times when they break up the action and tension. But El's biting humor, her friends' quirky characters, and Orion's obstinacy are not only better explored but also defined. I listened to the audio version and the narrator was excellent, giving us a variety of American and British accents while also creating narrative personalities.

Story: El is now a senior and has managed to survive the scholomance to this point. But as she becomes more powerful, she also forges new alliances that increase her potential abilities. Suddenly, she no longer just wants to survive with her friends; now, she wants to save the whole school. But the scholomance has a mind of its own: is it hindering her or is it helping her achieve that goal?

I have a lot of respect that Novik didn't just rewrite the first book, with El facing monsters of the week while sporting witty bon mots directed at everyone and especially Orion Lake. Along with El, the other students are also given interesting growth arcs, whether enemy or friend. Relationships develop, further alliances created, and even sex is discussed (and performed). These are not the same characters from the first book and instead have grown into their own unique people. As El's and the students' situations change, so do the characters.

The story ends on quite an abrupt cliffhanger that I think will leave many frustrated since the first book closed on a neat arc. The story is set for three books and it will be interesting to see where the author takes the story from here.

In all, I greatly enjoyed the audio narration and felt it gave it a great spark and personality. I can see where many will find the endless breakaway expositions frustrating, though, and it is an interesting plot device by the author to do so.

This is going to be a hard review for me to write, because there is absolutely nothing going on in my head, just as I'm beginning to realize that there is not much happening at all in this book.

If there truly is such a thing as second-book-syndrome, this book suffers greatly from it. While thepage count has increased greatly from the first book, there's a lot less happening. To recall: At the end of the first book, El and some other students repaired the machinery to cleanse the graduation hall from the monsters waiting to devour the graduating seniors. As a result, all the monsters were killed, and now - you guessed it - there are none left. None to attack the students. (Except for our beloved heroine, because she's speeeecial.)

A lot of the problems of the first book have been resolved in this one - mainly, there is no massive racist paragraph smack bang in the middle of it like there was in the first book. The childish, forced-funny writing style has been calmed down a bit, although it still doesn't reach the flowing prose of Naomi Novik's other novels. However, it doesn't resemble a text from your middle-aged boss, desperate to prove he's able to keep up with the times and slang, anymore. Thank God. It does retain it's forced-seeming, light-hearted black humor, that I just don't think fits with the subject matter.

Talking about the subject matter: The plot is still as stupid as the first one. For all the reasons the students gave as to why this whole Scholomance thing is supposedly the best decision ever and the best way to help kids survive, it still doesn't make SENSE. The basis of the very thing the book is about is so stupidly nonsensical that I just don't care about it's resolution. You're still trying to tell me that a bunch of very smart adult scientist wizards and scholars can't take care of their children's survival, but a group of hormonal teenagers can come up with a simple solution in a matter of days? Once again, I just don't buy it. And that makes reading this book very difficult.

However, there is a major advantage this book has over its predecessor: There's actual relationships. El having friends does so much, and her actually having conversations that aren't just insults is ... god, it's just a major relief. I still don't get the romance between her and Orion, because while Orion is sweet and likeable and, next to my beloved Liu, probably the best character in the book, there's just no chemistry between the two. We are told all the time that Orion has never wanted anything except El - but why? She has never been nice to him, ever. And I don't think he's that much of a glutton for punishment. Well.

Another point that irked me very much was the spoilers the book delivers itself: Every chapter is named after the enemy our group is going to be fighting in that particular chapter. So when I looked at the table of contents at the beginning of my ebook copy, well ... I saw the title of the last chapter and knew from the beginning what was coming. Kind of destroyed the whole experience for me, and I don't usually mind spoilers at all.

So yeah, that's all I can think of right now. I'm kinda glad it's over for now, but I'm already dreading the third book. But I can also not not read it, ya know?

hi there,

There seems to have been a glitch on the site and I will not be giving feedback on this title, I never wished for or requested this book and seem to have been given access by mistake and do not wish to read or review it.
(I also didn't want to rate a book I have not read but netgalley refused to send this message unless it included a rating).

thank you