Magical, dark academia with some great plot twists. The novel is engaging and fast paced, a fitting sequel to A Deadly Education. Naomi Novik knows how to spin a story and this is a series you don't want to miss

TL;DR: A solid second installment that brings fresh plot twists. My rating 3 of 5 stars.

The Last Graduate is a solid follow up to A Deadly Education. I enjoyed the first enough to request an e-ARC of the second installment when it popped up on NetGalley. That said, my feelings on the Scholomance series are merely mildly positive. I enjoy reading them, but they’re not making my list of favorites that I recommend to friends and family.

The Last Graduate opens with a reminder of the pretty ominous cliffhanger of the first book--a grave note from El’s mother from the outside, warning her to stay away from romantic interest, Orion Lake. While El occasionally ponders why her mother sent the warning, she largely ignores it and that question does not get satisfactorily resolved in this sequel.

Despite that letdown, Novik definitely brings new sources of excitement and conflict into the Scholomance. As predicted, El experiences quite a rise in her social cachet after the events of book 1. So while there’s still some repetitive talk of strategy for dodging mals in classrooms and cafeterias, the plot has graduated (heh heh) beyond questions of mere day-to-day survival. From Day 1 of the new school year El notices some major shifts in how the mysterious school operates. She eventually realizes that the school is trying to communicate with her and train her to aid in fulfilling its mission.

Novik closes the book with yet another big cliffhanger that pretty much guarantees I’ll likely read the next book as well. To be honest, I am intrigued where the plot will go and how relationships will hold up and develop after El, her allies, and her conclave frenemies are back in the outside world.

Why only 3 stars? I still find El’s voice and tone pretty grating. I hoped her change in circumstances would have mitigated her contradictory mix of self-importance and self-deprecation. It didn’t. The scale just shifted a bit more in the direction of self-importance. Also, some may recall the controversy over Novik’s racist description of Black students in the first book. While perhaps not as egregious, I still definitely experienced moments of discomfort in how non-white characters were portrayed. In particular, the description of Liu (El’s maleficer-turned-strict-maliya ally and friend)’s family didn’t sit right with me coming from a white author. It read like a caricature (and condemnation) of a domineering Asian family willing to prioritize the good of the family at large at the cost of the safety and survival of one daughter. Let’s please get some BIPOC & AAPI editors to read for this shit in book 3!!!

This book was absolutely MAGICAL! Truly an amazing book. It’s been a long time since a series has been able to capture my imagination and get me excited like this series has (probably since Harry Potter), but Naomi Novik has done it again!
The setting alone—the dark, dangerous school of magic. Plus, the unusual characterization with El, and the romance. Not to mention the diversity really sets it apart, although I hope there isn’t a huge increase in this because then it may feel like the author has a political axe to grind.
I loved the plot, the romance(Orion is fascinating!), everything! Well, everything except that cliffhanger of an ending. I loudly recommend this book to anyone and everyone.

I was so excited to see this sequel to A Deadly Education because I couldn't wait to find out more about El's adventures at the Scholomance. This novel did not disappoint. Novik sucked me back into this magical world where El and Orion continue to be the heroes. You may not be satisfied by the ending, but El's journey to graduation day is full of twists and turns that will keep you turning the pages. I don't want to give any spoilers, but be assured that El makes some new friends and learns a lot about herself and the school along the way. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this digital ARC.

I think this cliffhanger is really going to do a number on a lot of readers. However, it was overall a very interesting and compelling story, which kept veering off in directions I didn’t see coming, right up to the last sentence. I enjoyed the character development and overarching themes of this book.

However, after listening to “A Deadly Education” as an audiobook and then reading this, I think this story would read better in an audio format. There’s a lot of times in El’s narration where she suddenly jumps to a related topic/memory/etc. to explain something, and I found myself having to keep rereading sections to fully grasp them. I will definitely be listening to this book as well once it is released.

The Last Graduate is the second novel in the Scholomance trilogy. The novels in this series, for me, should be read in order to fully appreciate and understand the content. This novel does end with a cliffhanger ending, so waiting for the next novel is going to be very difficult as I am anxious to see what happens next! The story continues to follow El as she begins her senior year at the school. With many secrets and dangers continuing to lurk around every corner, it will not be a dull year for these magically gifted students.

El continues to explore her relationships with her newfound group that was formed in the previous novel. Her friends and alliance members, Liu and Aadhya continue to be a great support system. Their dynamic provides a nice balance between everyday friendship dynamics/character growth navigation and the main plot of dangers in the school. El also continues to navigate her complicated relationship with heroic Orion Lake. Now that she has received a warning for being near him, she has a new obstacle to overcome. Their relationship initially seems to be an enigma to the characters and to the reader, but their relationship grows a lot with the dynamics between them changing. I loved reading about their complex relationship as they try to navigate their feelings and the many dangers around them.

This senior class has around 1000 students left after starting around 1600, which is vastly larger than the 800 (or less) that is usually present at this point. I loved that these statistics were weaved into the narration as it reaffirms the dangers that the students face each year. With the change in the number of students, they are not facing a huge unknown about how making passes the graduation test will go. With odds seemingly in their favor, El starts to think about life after graduation for the first time. The mal continues to pose threats to the students, but their attacks are different from the first novel. In A Deadly Education, there is mal after mal presented to the reader, so it was very interesting to see how the dangers have changed based on the ending of the last novel.

Overall, this is an excellent transition novel between the first and third novels in the trilogy. I loved the amount of character growth and the journeys that the characters go through which helps this novel not feel like a “filler,” which can happen to some second novels in a trilogy. I greatly enjoyed reading this novel with the multiple twists, endless dangers, and great characters to create an interesting story. Although I loved El in this novel, there was a part of me that missed her being a very snarky loner as her being an outcast added an even greater layer to the tension of the story. She is still sassy as a character, but it now is presented in a new way given her circumstances have changed. This novel was an excellent addition to the series, but, again, the ending is very frustrating because now I really want to know what will happen next!

**I give a special thank you to Netgalley, the publisher, Del Rey Books, and the author for the opportunity to read this enjoyable novel. The opinions expressed are completely my own.**

The Last Graduate follows Galadriel in her senior year at the Scholomance as she and the other seniors prepare to make the death run through the graduation hall. Staying alive means you graduated.

While I liked the snark in this book as much as I liked the first book the story in this one didn't hold up. Most of the book was spent planning something that was hugely anti-climatic. The big twist at the end of the first book still wasn't ever explained. This book also ends on a cliff hanger that seems truly unnecessary. Overall this book felt like there was no real risk to any of the characters.

Still good, would still recommend, but maybe wait until the whole series is out because the wait with the cliff hangers is killer.

4.5 ⭐️

OMGGG OMGGG. Okay, this book definitely surpassed my expectations and I will say with all confidence that this book is soooo much better than A Deadly Education.

We pick right up from the ending of A Deadly Education with that note. (I will say after reading this book, I’m still unsure what it means).

Galadriel grew sooo much in this book. She was still prickly and quick to anger, but that’s what we love about her. We meet new characters and make new alliances. I absolutely loved the friendship between El, Aadhya, and Liu. I squealed a lot. We get more monsters and even a couple familiars which I can’t wait to see more of in the next book.

The romance definitely kicked up a notch; the banter was still *chef’s kiss* We get more of an understanding into Orion’s background and see some vulnerable parts of him.

That ending. THAT ENDING! I got major anxiety reading the last 10% cause I KNEW. I knewww that something was going to happen. This definitely ends on a major cliff hanger and now I don’t know what to do with myself as I anxiously await for book 3 and pray to the literary gods I get selected to read an ARC.

New York Times Bestselling Author Naomi Novik crafted a darkly beautiful version of our world, where dangerous creatures called Maleficaria swarm adolescent wizards to devour their magic. To give their children a better chance at surviving puberty, adult wizards built a school in the void. For four years, these teens learn spells, forge alliances, and do whatever they can to stay alive.

Because while the school is safer than the outside world, it is not safe. Maleficaria do get in, and only twenty-five percent of students make it through all four years and graduate. The Scholomance is boarding school hell - more of a nightmare prison, actually - but if a student beats the one-in-four-odds of survival, they return home with the skills and connections to build their adult lives.


The Last Graduate picks up exactly where A Deadly Education left off. Galadriel – or El – is now a senior at the Scholomance, and is no longer an outcast. She has a graduation alliance. She has friends. She also has a half-healed gut-wound and a target on her back. She did everything in her power to ensure the prior year’s seniors graduated safely, but they wouldn’t know if it worked until the end of the year when El’s class graduates.

She’d shown her power, though, and the school sees El as a threat. So do other students.

This year the Scholomance has given El an impossible schedule, stuck her in a secluded classroom with a bunch of helpless freshmen, and sent all the Maleficaria after her. It appears as if the school is intent on taking El down, and it’s not alone. Students don’t normally turn on one another, too busy fighting Maleficaria to openly attack one another.

This year, everything changes.

The Last Graduate is the perfect follow-up to A Deadly Education. It’s another stellar novel, and I couldn’t put it down. In fact, I read it twice, and I know I’ll read it again because I not only pre-ordered a print copy, but also the audiobook. Anisha Dadia did such a fantastic job narrating A Deadly Education, I know the audiobook for The Last Graduate will be just as good.

El has finally made it to the last year of her "education" and now the stakes are higher than ever. After the ending of the last book, we know that she has to stay away from Orion, but will she? Everything seems to get darker and darker for the characters, until eventually it's either get out or be out.



It's so hard to write a review without giving much away! Thank you Netgalley and Random House Publishing for the . This novel is suburb and will leave so many readers mad and excited for the next chapter!

Biggest spoiler warning is that yes, this book ends on a HUGE cliffhanger, one so big that if you know you can't handle cliffhangers, just don't read it until the third book comes out!

It's so hard to give a spoiler-free review of this particular book -- I'll start by saying that if you had problems with character voice and level of detailed exposition in the last one, you will most definitely not enjoy this one, as it is more of the same, but even more so as we the readers are even more comfortable with El's voice and the lore of the school gets deeper. I personally love El's first-person narration and Novik's exposition style, but not everyone does. Orion is also . . . not really absent, per se, for much of the book, but . . . . not entirely himself either. There are reasons for that and it's a deliberate choice, but it can be frustrating at times. When you finally get his POV from his own mouth, way down the line, he talks more than he's ever talked up to that point in both books combined.

I continue to love El, love the school (which is a character in its own right), the side characters are fleshed out and expanded more, and Orion and El's relationship is actually SUPER realistic for older teenagers in intense circumstances (I mean besides the obviously-unrealistic monster-fighting parts!). The tension builds until the very end, and it was a page-turner for me. Can't wait till the next one!

I love how this book recontextualizes the "hard facts" that the main character, El, took advantage of in the first book and uses them to subvert expectations. I absolutely cannot wait until the last book. Everything Naomi Novik writes is gold.

4.5/5 stars

While I enjoyed A Deadly Education well enough (to read the sequel at least), I wasn't as enthralled with it as I was hoping I would be. I'm a fan of the author's other works, the premise sounded great, but there was something about it that just wasn't keeping my interest. I think it may have been the crazy amount of info dumps the author included, a complaint I have heard countless people make.

While there are definitely still info dumps in The Last Graduate (one of the reasons I had to dock the book half a star) the action in this book blew me away. While I really like the characters, I'm more of a plot-driven book fan and the story just kept me hooked. Also, that last chapter is one of my favorite final chapters that I think I've ever read. I felt like I had run a marathon after it was over and I had a book hangover for days.

On the negative side: In addition to the info dumps, I also have to dock the book a bit because the author sometimes includes characterizations of and comments about non-American/European characters that I found pretty cringey. It's really not the most surprising thing in the world that a person born in Asia can speak fluent English, and yet the author felt the need to have her characters note their shock at such a thing on multiple occasions. I know there were issues in book one where there was a certain amount of tonedeafness in terms of the portrayal of non-American/European cultures and languages, and while I don't think book two was nearly as bad, sadly I feel like some of those problems did still persist.

Thanks to NetGalley and Del Rey Books for the advanced copy.

The TLDR version: This book is awesome, Naomi Novik is awesome, El is awesome, and I want one of my friends to read this book *RIGHT NOW* so I can talk to someone about it properly.

Long form review: Bear with me. I’m going somewhere with this.

The Paladin class is probably the trickiest of the classic tabletop RPG classes to play *right*. Setting aside details of stuff like armor class and weapon proficiencies and skill points, the heart of the class is that a character’s powers are directly tied to them living according to a strict personal code. Act against your code, and you lose your powers.

Lazy players will treat that code as just another class requirement, and make sure their character’s actions fit a strict reading of that code. Boring players make the code the central thing about their character, and the result is a kind of annoying religious zealot. The really interesting players also make the code the central thing about their character, but they make it a point of growth and internal conflict.

El is probably the best example of the Paladin character I’ve ever seen.

To quote *Into the Wood*, “‘Nice’ is different than ‘good.’” El is not nice. She is sarcastic, judgmental, self-righteous, and takes rudeness to places never before seen. But she is also, loathe as she is to admit it, her mother’s daughter, and that central conflict is what makes both *A Deadly Education* and *The Last Graduate* so freaking compelling. It’s not about the anti-Hogwarts nature of the Scholomance or fighting dangerous maleficarium or whatever cool spells El can pull off (though all that stuff is, admittedly, pretty great). What makes these books so compelling is seeing El trying to convince herself that she’s living according to the Scholomance’s selfish “every wizard for themselves” rules while being completely unable to actually do so.

I promised no spoilers, and I’m going to stick to that, but we saw this conflict play out pretty well in *A Deadly Education*. Her relationships with Aadhya and Liu and Orion. Her realization that she wasn’t actually playing some kind of clever long game so much as unconsciously procrastinating what her “plan” required her to do. Her determination to survive clashing with her refusal to let others die if she could prevent it. Her longing for the safety of an enclave and inability to accept the fundamental injustice of their existence. All of that carries on in this book, taken to the next level.

I strongly suggest not starting the last quarter or so of the book unless you have the time to finish it. The entire book was great, but that last portion building up to the climax was pretty much impossible to put down (the overall shape of the plot structure is pretty similar to *A Deadly Education,* actually). Those who have read aDE can guess what the climactic event is centered around. This book doesn’t end on a cliffhanger in the traditional sense, but (like aDE) holy hell is there a sequel hook.

Naomi Novik is, I feel, much like El herself: a once-in-a-generation-talent with the power to rock the world on its foundations. Will she use that power for good or evil? If *Uprooted* and *Spinning Silver* are any guide, probably for good, but (again, like El) I could well see her going to the dark side under the right circumstance. I hope Naomi gets book 3 out soon so I can find out.

Thanks to Del Ray for the ARC. The book comes out on September 28.

Improves on the already-solid first entry in the series by virtue of expanding the world. In some ways, the quintessential "middle book," setting up a finale more than it resolves or even attempts much here, but it's executed with zeal and suggests a grander full story than the inaugural book initially indicated.

It’s been nearly two days since finishing THE LAST GRADUATE and I’m not remotely over this book. It’s a rare sequel that takes all of the things I loved from book 1 and seems to do them even better the second time around. THE LAST GRADUATE is filled with compelling characters, darkly hilarious, and a scathing look at how systems designed to save us can completely fail us instead.

El is one of my all-time favorite protagonists. Her narrative voice is biting but relatable as the person she can be the harshest toward is herself. El faces some big challenges about who she is and what matters to her, which made for a really compelling plot arc. Watching her grow over the course of THE LAST GRADUATE was so, so satisfying.

The development of the Scholomance as a setting and the expansion of the magic system in THE LAST GRADUATE were both such a delight to read. The world of the Scholomance mirrors the existing power structures in the real world in a way that allows for some excellent criticisms of the things privileged people can accept as “normal.” Novik expands the reader’s knowledge of what magic can do in ways that added so much to the reading experience. El’s views of how magic works are repeatedly challenged in this book, which helped flesh out the world in really interesting ways.

Perhaps the most enduring element of THE LAST GRADUATE in the days after finishing it is the ending. I am absolutely unequivocally not over the ending. This book held my heart in my hands and, true to the Scholomance itself, it was not kind to it. The best part is that I can’t even be mad about what happened since it was so true to the characters that I honestly can’t see things going any other way.

The Scholomance has become a new favorite series of mine. THE LAST GRADUATE was all I could’ve hoped for and more from a sequel. I can’t wait to discuss it with more readers when it comes out in September.

A new standalone Naomi Novik novel or installation in a series is somewhat like the rare and elusive experience of continuing a very good dream after briefly waking up. The seamless narrative continuity, the astonishing landscape of endlessly inventive but oddly familiar curiosities, and the equally complex snarl of relationships, are all steeped in the peculiar logic and emotional resonance of those heroic fiery stories that are forged in sleep. And these are the most compelling stories, the ones that are so all-consuming that the distinction between the story and the self, the person reading the book, is completely erased and you live the book while reading it, and the continuation of your next breath or heartbeat depends on turning or swiping the next page. So yeah, The Last Graduate is one of those kind of books.

To the benefit of the reader The Last Graduate picks up directly from the last line of A Deadly Education, when Galadriel or El has just unfurled the short cryptic note from her beloved mother, warning her to stay away from Orion, the socially oblivious, much adulated maleficaria killing machine who has appointed himself El’s personal protector, much to her scathing, clearly stated, and often hilarious irritation.

As detailed in A Deadly Education, Galadriel has spent her life lying low, resisting her natural inclination to lay waste to cities and vanquish her perceived enemies through horrifically imaginative methods of extermination, which seem to be only spells the Schoolmance will disgorge to her. Her status as a rejected and somewhat feared social outcast/loner has been reinforced by a lifetime of ostracism, which has accelerated during the brutal survival mode trade economy of the 4-year Schoolmance education. However, not everyone feels the brunt of imminent mal-inflicted death. The Schoolmance and the outside wizard world are governed by enclaves, whichfunction as a blend of corporate power, mediating mana (life force magical power) and protection with entrenched legacy membership, protected by the labors of the wannabes in the hopes of a lesser affiliation and eventual membership for their offspring or family. Novik exceeds at world building and world mirroring, as the structure of the enclaves uncomfortably resembles the elitism, entitlement, and stratified power structure between the haves and have nots in our own society. In her growing and often reluctant self-awareness as an outsider, El’s desires evolve from her highest aspiration of an enclave invitation, to a realization and rejection of the system-wide inequity and corruption that this membership entails. Much of her fury is directed at Orion for being a clueless hapless beneficiary of the enclave’s rewards, and yet, since Novik rarely deals in absolutes when developing her characters, El must also uneasily come to terms with the fact that Orion is also being exploited by his enclave, the extent of which causes another glass shake of the Schoolmance globe.

This is heady stuff and as El’s powers grow, along with the Schoolmance’s escalating attempts to thwart them, she is forced to come to terms with “the great responsibility that comes with great power,” while battling for her life with energetically persistent mals and even her fellow seniors. The surprising decisions she makes in response to this, and the resources and help she receives in realizing them are unpredictable and often wrenching.

Initially El’s skirmishes take place in her new homeroom, on the nearly inaccessible 5th floor in a room rigged to be a mal paradise, which she shares it with freshman aka those she does not want to acknowledge or recognize to avoid grieving for their inevitable deaths. This strategy does not hold for long, though the Schoolmance is far from finished with El.

As graduation day looms closer, the coalitions shift and crackle like loose electrical lines, especially evident during the simulation graduation day training exercises in the gym. The previously unresponsive gym has some long dormant surprises for El’s class, causing the seniors to abruptly change factions and partnerships to better their chances, resulting in a near daily shake up of the power grid.

These rehearsal graduation runs with simulation and sometimes real mals unfold with such zest, terror, and high-powered adrenaline that Novik’s background as a video game designer is clearly apparent, as well as her delight in creating them. Her nail biting battle scene choreography dizzyingly drives the twists and spins and zigzag escape hatches that often turn into the opposite. It’s nerve-wracking and enchanting and makes a satisfying counterpart to El’s ongoing analytic, always critical interior monologues, and they play off each other well.

The plot threads are dense and intricate but never dropped, and overlaid with them are a raft of new characters including Liesel, a beautiful, terrifyingly ambitious fast-track valedictorian; Sudarat, a terrified freshman whose Bangkok enclave mysteriously dissolves before the first week; and El’s familiar, the mouse, Precious, who demonstrates some decidedly unfamiliar independent inclinations concerning El’s well-being. Also vying for billing are the many mals from leeches to larvae to wicker basket men to the frightening mystery of the whereabouts of the maw mouth twins: Patience and Fortitude.

But next to the increasingly enticing forbidden fruit charms of a suddenly buff Orion Lake, the great love story of The Last Graduate is one of slow trust and friendship, between El and the members of her alliance, Aadhya, Liu, and seemingly privileged enclaver Chloe. This territory is new and often emotionally dangerous for El. And as with any BFFs that have your back, they also call you on your merde. Aadhya, who is perhaps closest to El, is also her self-appointed social nuance coach: “You’d rather run away and wallow in angst than ask for help or anything else extremely horrible like that.” Of course El is hardest on herself and her relentless self-doubt, bouts of rage, introspection, honesty, and knife sharp retorts, make her one of the most engaging anti hero/heroes in recent literature.

And Orion? Novik excels at a slow-building almost antagonistic sexual connection between her characters that unwinds almost in the background until extreme circumstances trigger its emergence; it happens here and she reinvigorates the wartime romance trope so effectively that you can almost feel the steam wafting up from the e-book. The long payoff to the actual graduation day pays off, hugely. The actual graduation scenes are so vividly conceived and written that the experience is almost more like watching a film than reading a novel. And all of this occurs before El can really puzzle out the message behind the message in her mother’s short ribbon of a note.

The emotions are all earned here, often painfully, but never gratuitously and unlike the Victorian-era engineering wonders of the Schoolmance, we never hear the gears wheels and pulleys cranking in service of the plot. Novick’s sly wit surfaces repeatedly through small, almost throw away details, such as the possible dinner offering of Shepherd’s Pie made from real shepherd. And the ending, well it’s goes far beyond being a run of the mill cliff hanger, perhaps it's more like a cliff hanger located in the middle of an active fault line, and you could almost entertain the idea of going into suspended animation for a year or more to lessen the time until the final installment of this exceptional series is released. Fortunately, Novik has other fine books to read and reread during this finger-drumming, thumb-twiddling time. The best things are always worth waiting for of course, except at the conclusion of this book, it also feels as though you are time traveling to a childhood car trip, and focused entirely on a single question: “Are we there yet?” No, not for at least another year, sigh.

Much like "Deadly Education," I find that I overall like this book more for the worldbuilding than narrative of El. It was frequent that the book would be sidetracked in the middle of a scene, but the writing style is good, so I kept reading. El is very abrasive, which was frustrating to read at times, but not enough to where I would stop the series. I recommed this for readers that enjoy dark and magical worlds, because Novik's world ultimately made the "Deadly Education" books great reads.

A lot of the issues I had with the first book have definitely been mostly resolved upon finishing this read. El is for sure in a different place since the end to A Deadly Education, and I love watching her relationships and status as a senior unfold throughout the course of the novel.
I still have some issues with the writing style, specifically when El goes too deep into a miscellaneous tangent about an event, monster, etc. it was significantly more prominent in the first book, and I like that it was toned down somewhat in this sequel. Although, on the same wavelength as that, I'll forever adore El's wit anf sarcasm. Her voice is such a punch to my senses every time I sit down with these books, and it's one of Naomi's writing strengths within this world. Pure addiction for me!
Now where my feelings become a bit hurt is the absolute CRAZINESS that was that ending. No spoilers but truly I don't know how to function in my wait for the next book (finale I believe?). I don't think anyone is ready for this, and I cannot wait to see other reviewers'/ readers' thoughts. It will be a shock- for sure!

I had such a love/hate relationship with this book.
I loved the characters, absolutely loved them. El was so gruff almost to the point of stand-offishness but I LOVED her. She had Orion trying to make moves the whole book and she was like NOPE, I want to live and get through graduation and it was fantastic. I loved the friendship she struck up with Liu and Aadyah in the first book and it just got even more wonderful in this one. They really had each other's backs the entire book and we just really got to know them better which was fantastic. And they never gave up on El no matter how stand-offish she was. We also got to know characters we only knew a little bit in the first book so much better in this one. I think the characters were my favorite part of this book.
The plot. (This part will probably include spoilers!) At first we think, ok, this book is going to be about El, Aadyah and Liu trying to get out of this killer school and back to their families. But really, it was about El realizing what her powers can really do and how she can use them (I will not say how she ends up using them). It was about changing your mindset. For centuries, these students have been selfish, only thinking about getting themselves out at the end of 4 years. That was literally the only way anyone got out. Mal eating your friend? That's fine, because it's not you. El finds out that with her power she can turn this whole mindset on its head, but can she get everyone else to go along with it?
That was the part of the plot/writing style I absolutely loved. There was just SO MUCH info dumping. All the time. We would be in the middle of a one page conversation, have a 5 page info dump about something only slightly relevant and then go right back into the conversation and 99% of the time I didn't even remember what the original conversation had been about. That totally took me out of the story and I really felt like I slogged through those parts.
The ending was absolutely fantastic. Maybe a tiny bit dragged out, but it was amazing. THAT CLIFFHANGER THOUGH. If you don't like cliffhangers DO NOT read this book until the third one comes out or you will probably end up throwing your book at the wall!