A Deadly Education

This book is very enjoyable. However, it does so much world building, explaining, and backstory, that it's at the detriment of plotting.

An enjoyable twist on the ‘magical kids go to magic school' idea. It did seem a bit odd to me that we never really see or interact with any kind of teacher - i mean, they talk about going to classes and stuff, but.... is there ANY adult supervision at all? You'd think we'd see something about that?? - but overall I really liked the idea.

Well, it's official. I am deeply in love with Naomi Novik's writing style. I just love her characters, their dynamics. I also love a good character-driven plot, and the fact that I loved the first-person POV when otherwise I can't stand most of these type of books just speaks volumes.

I adored her magic system in Uprooted as well, and this one also felt like I could grasp it. The concept of the school is a spin on an old trope, but it felt refreshing, especially with how deeply strategic every decision had to be for El.

Can't wait for the next book, especially with how this one ended!!

Galadriel being constantly annoyed at her conscience and strong moral compass is peak entertainment and I relate to her a lot.

In many ways, you would think that the wizard school trope has been done to death, but Naomi Novik proves there is life to this subject still. Her world and school is a much darker affair than the typical Harry Potter-esque wizarding school. Death does stalk the corridors. There is no adult teaching staff, which gives a slight lord of the flies vibe at times. The characters themselves are darker, and greyer in their morals. The imperative to survive outways any heavy moralizing. This is Harry Potter, the Grimdark version.

Our main protagonist is a dark wizard waiting to happen. In this world magicians have affinities. Hers is the magic of death and destruction. The spells she can learn easily are ones that cause carnage. It is an interesting moral quandary. The school itself is also a character in its own right - it provides what it thinks the student needs, but is infested with evil creatures and traps that the students have to learn to survive. And these things are deadly - plenty of people do die from these traps in these pages.

I will acknowledge that there are some issues that have been raised with the writing of ethnic characters in the book - Naomi has acknowledged and apologized for the misuse of the word ‘locs' in an unintendedly insensitive way in a late edit, which will be corrected back in future editions. This was fair criticism and it is good the way that the author has owned up to it. The other criticism has come across as a little bit overblown - this is a magical alternative reality. To me, none of this detracts from what is a supremely dark and intriguing take on a magical school story.

I enjoyed this immensely and can highly recommend it. It was easy to read yet intriguingly dark.

I gave this another try. Someone online basically screamed at me for disliking this and wrote whole essays about why it's literally the most intelligent and best book EVAH.
Which... it isn't. But now I will wrote a slightly longer, proper review. So there we go.

Magical kids attract monsters. Their semi-controlled energy is a feast and they can't put up a fight equal to a fully trained magical adult. So the kids get sent to the Scholomance, a school where kids are locked up for 4 whole years, where survival is the hardest. Food gets poisoned, monsters lurk, you can't even go to the bathroom without looking over your shoulder.
Galadriel, aka El is... not popular. She is gloomy and weird and unfriendly, so she is not really allied to anyone, which is viatl in a hostile enviroment, until... a kid from an influential family, Orion Lake, suddenly starts following her around because he has a crush on her. After that, everyone suddenly cares about El.

I still feel what I felt during my first attempt; El is a bitch. She is rude to everyone, constantly judges, has issues with everyone. We have to root for her, because this is a YA book and she is a female main character, therefore her toxic behaviour is not only accepted, but glorified. She had a bad childhood! A huge part of it is because of her annoying, tree-hugging hippy mother, who is super powerful in healing, but is just too much of a spineless granola to actually DO THINGS to make her child not absolutely miserable. There are always excuses, because wizard groups called enclaves are douchey, and also she doesn't charge money for her skills, and BLAH BLAH BLAH.
It's just shitty parenting.
But all in all, El becomes an asshole. She meets Orion, this heroic, but socially inept boy... and she goes on abusing him. She calls him names, yells at him, lets him know she fucking hates his existence.
Then she also does the same with the people who try to “suck up to him”. The whole thing is excused with “well, it's better because you just want to use him and I don't, I treat him like everyone else”. This annoys me so much.
PSA for everyone reading: just because people treat you weirdly doesn't mean you have to accept constant verbal abuse and making you feel like you're a burden from someone else. NO, that is absolutely abuser behaviour.

Some things are fun about this. A bunch of the stuff going on at school can be interesting, but at the same time... why? Magic exists and people don't even really try protecting their kids, they just send them to a murder factory? Yes, the book tries to explain it away, but danger to their kids is literally one of the biggest things that motivates people.
It's just all too convenient for making it cool and edgy and violent. The whacky things didn't seem to have a good enough reason. You get some, sure, just not strong enough ones to not make me doubt the whole thing.

I did enjoy Orion Lake (stupidest, most Wattpad name ever), he was determined and he did so much good, while being a social zero. It just saddens me he is so stuck to someone who absolutely does not treat him right. It's the gender-swapped version of “he is a dickhead, but it's just because he had a hard childhood, love will change him”.
If Novik plays this straight, or just blames it on conveniently inconvenient magic, I will scream.

All in all, superficially cool idea get bogged down by unpleasantness and “yeah right” edgetastic explanations and rules. It's extremely sellable to a target audience that feels asshole young women are STRONG and INDEPENDENT. It works if you think not treating others like maggots is just internalised patriarchy or whatever.
I will go on with the series to see what half-baked excuse will explain away all this, but... yeah. This is yet another unpleasant YA read.

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This did not work for me whatsoever. When I say it's basically needlessly edgy Mean Girls and annoying high school drama it probably explains it all.

The protagonist is yet another asshole teenage girl we are supposed to think is all that and so witty, but to me she came off as a bad person. Of course she gets the attention of this super influential and important, rich, connected guy and what does she do? Constantly acts like the biggest bitch to him, which he takes like he enjoys being kicked around.
It was very juvenile, very annoying, very unpleasant.

I read through this book quite quickly and enjoyed. I then for the next 25 hour I could not stop thinking about it. The book can be read as a simple magical coming of age story. Or about overcoming predgidous. Or as a fantasy adventure. It can as be read as a critique of capitalism and castism. It has all the appeal of HP but without the sexism and morality tropes. While it has shade of dark like Garth Nix, Novik maintains her delightfully unique voice. I am greatly looking forward to the sequel.

Given that I LOVE Uprooted and enjoy magic school settings, I had been eagerly anticipating A Deadly Education, but I was disappointed. Although I actually did like the overall story and the dynamic between the two main characters (and the main character herself, once I got to better know and understand her), there was SO MUCH exposition. It seemed there was more explanation than actual story, and the attempts at injecting some humor into the long-winded, rambling narrative fell flat for me.

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