The Last Graduate

This one was hampered a bit by being the middle book in the trilogy. It ends on a huge cliffhanger, and I spent most of the book looking forward to reading about what happens after they graduate, which won't come until book 3.

Naomi Novik's Scholomance is the Battle Royale version of Harry Potter. Definitely darker and more violent although the end of book 1 left things looking a bit on the up. The Last Graduate picks up pretty much where book 1 ended - El has helped cleanse the graduation halls and that means the number of evil magical creatures (‘mals') has dropped significantly. Now El and her friends are in their graduate year, working out how to survive the gauntlet.

This is definitely an antidote to the cloying sweetness of typical wizarding school type novels. Harry Potter may have popularized the trend, but this dark and snarky take is much more up my street. The threat in this second book is toned down a bit from the first - the power and alliances of El are better understood and controlled so you know the survival rate is going to be higher. But there is still a delicious darkness, a griminess that permeates everything in this world

NAOMI NOVIK HOW COULD YOU!?!?!?

It's rare when a book makes me actually physically react. I cried, I was so tense I was shaking at the end. A delightfully truly f'd up masterpiece.

I have no words... This was a freaking disaster.

Likes:
* The 360° that El did in this book. Yeah we always knew you were a softie.

* El is such a damn unreliable narrator. It's more glaringly obvious in this book.

* Also, she keeps going off on tangents every time she starts explaining something. A guy comes up to her to ask her something and she starts telling us about 3 different things that happened in the past and her long-ass thought process

This gave me much more of what I wanted than the first. Felt much more enjoyable and compelling. And now, of course, I must wait for the next to find out what happens.

I loved this book very much. It has incredible characters and is full of defiant, furious hope in the face of crushing horror. My review of its ending is as follows:

seventeen consecutive hours of hysterical shrieking

I definitely didn't like this quite as much as the first book, even though I ended up giving them the same Goodreads rating (this one was really more like 3.5 stars). The info-dumping didn't get any better and, honestly, I felt like I ended up unintentionally skimming a LOT because we would go into pages of detail on how exactly the magic system works. It also felt like there was a lot of day-to-day slogging, following the characters way more closely than necessary. I felt bored for a lot of the first half.

The second half was much better, and I found myself much more invested in the plot even though it also struggled with some of the points noted above. I truly wish Novik would have spent a little less time cramming every bit of info she had about the magic systems into this and a little more time showing us more character interactions. It made the story feel a lot more at arm's length and harder to get invested in when having information beat into my brain instead of getting to know the characters more.

Anyway, I did like this! I blew through the last third of the book (even though I think the end is mildly ridiculous) and am looking forward to the sequel. And I'll probably preorder it so I have pretty matching books on my shelves.

3.5

As someone who grew up with a massive love for Harry Potter but is now turned off by the saccharin sweetness of that series, The Last Graduate, book 2 of The Scholomance series is a perfect reminder that it is much more fun to play in the dark, snarky side of things.

The first book, A Deadly Education, introduces us to Galadriel (I do not know of a more perfect name for a character), a young student starting her junior year at a wizarding academy called Scholomance. The survival rate for Scholomance is around 50%. You do not fail out; you are blown to bits, eaten, have your skin flayed off in strips, have your soul sucked out, or suffer psychological damage. To graduate, you must run the gauntlet through an obstacle course of creatures from hell all bent on devouring your mind, body, and soul.

“the same kind of calm as going through a crying jag and coming out the other side, where you know nothing's changed and it's all still horrible but you can't cry forever, so there's nothing to do but go on.”

There are no fundamental protections, except for those you make yourself. The food is terrible and often poisonous and full of larva, the surroundings are terrifying, plus you still have to deal with teenage drama and hormones. Thankfully most of which is tamped down in favor of not becoming something's dinner. Plus, the children do not leave Scholomance for four years and have limited resources; it is full of political intrigues and a course load that would break the best minds. It is a type of violence that hits you on all sides.

The Scholomance series is not a dark veneer painted over an otherwise sweet and endearing coming-of-age story. No, this is just dark, bloody, and cruel. The good don't win at Scholomance, mater a fact who gives a damn about good and evil. Just live in any way you can. Beg Barter and steel, and maybe you will see sunlight again. But then, maybe not.

“They were already vulnerable, so when they looked at me they were rabbits looking at a wolf - a half-starved wolf who sometimes snapped even at the hand that fed her because it also kept her on a leash.”

In the first book we are introduced to Galadriel, who has the bonus of being extremely unlikeable, naturally. She is much like her namesake, immensely powerful, and naturally stands on a precipice between good and evil. Her power and nature pull her towards the dark; she could flatten entire cities and become a dark queen, and all would despair before her.

“And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

But Galadriel, or El as she likes to be called, doesn't want that and never has. This dark pulling is balanced against the lessons from her mother, who is the antithesis of a dark queen, a healer who freely gives her healing for free to all. Much of the book is El waring with the desires of Scholomance to turn El into the dark queen of destruction that she has inside.

The worldbuilding of The Scholomance is mainly flashbacks of moments out in the real world and the terrifying and otherworldly creation of the school itself. It lives outside of reality in a void between worlds. The entire school is vicious, but the whole point is to protect students from demons that want to consume their inner mana. It does a mediocre job, so wizards must accept that half of their children will not make it out of puberty into adulthood without being eaten.

All of this floundering under a Damocles is what any of the students can hope for until El has an idea... “El realizes that sometimes winning the game means throwing out all the rules...”

This series has a lot of danger and a lot of heart. But unlike the first book, where we are introduced to El and the rules of Scholomance, here we are familiar with how everything works. It is exciting how we slowly see El take apart everything; who needs rules? And come into her power, both physical and of personality. She starts to believe that she can change everything.

I plowed through this book. Every chapter kept me flowing through the pages. Novik has done a lot of stellar series, and she knows how to keep her readers hooked in. I won't tell you what happens to El and her found family. Especially Orion, who we meet in the first novel, swings wildly in the other direction for power. That would ruin everything, but wow, is it exciting. And that ending...

I am giving this my highest rating. It is mind-blowing and fantastic. It ended, and I went clamoring for more. Thank god there is another book planned. If you are a fan of dark fantasy, then you will dig it.

WHAT

A dark book about a magical school that is trying to kill its students.

Pros:
Excellent character development
Diverse characters
Amazing world buidling
Witty dialog

Cons:
An awkward sex scene I don't think is good for young readers
There are some repetitive tired tropes