Hardcover, 336 pages
English language
Published Sept. 29, 2020 by Del Rey.
I decided that Orion Lake needed to die after the second time he saved my life.
Everyone loves Orion Lake. Everyone else, that is. Far as I’m concerned, he can keep his flashy combat magic to himself. I’m not joining his pack of adoring fans.
I don’t need help surviving the Scholomance, even if they do. Forget the hordes of monsters and cursed artifacts, I’m probably the most dangerous thing in the place. Just give me a chance and I’ll level mountains and kill untold millions, make myself the dark queen of the world.
At least, that’s what the world expects. Most of the other students in here would be delighted if Orion killed me like one more evil thing that’s crawled out of the drains. Sometimes I think they want me to turn into the evil witch they assume I am. The school certainly does.
But the Scholomance isn’t …
I decided that Orion Lake needed to die after the second time he saved my life.
Everyone loves Orion Lake. Everyone else, that is. Far as I’m concerned, he can keep his flashy combat magic to himself. I’m not joining his pack of adoring fans.
I don’t need help surviving the Scholomance, even if they do. Forget the hordes of monsters and cursed artifacts, I’m probably the most dangerous thing in the place. Just give me a chance and I’ll level mountains and kill untold millions, make myself the dark queen of the world.
At least, that’s what the world expects. Most of the other students in here would be delighted if Orion killed me like one more evil thing that’s crawled out of the drains. Sometimes I think they want me to turn into the evil witch they assume I am. The school certainly does.
But the Scholomance isn’t getting what it wants from me. And neither is Orion Lake. I may not be anyone’s idea of the shining hero, but I’m going to make it out of this place alive, and I’m not going to slaughter thousands to do it, either.
Although I’m giving serious consideration to just one.
With flawless mastery, Naomi Novik creates a school bursting with magic like you’ve never seen before, and a heroine for the ages—a character so sharply realized and so richly nuanced that she will live on in hearts and minds for generations to come.
Loved the premise here, even if at times I questioned some of the internal logic of the magic laws at work. I was a little put off at the start by the narrative tone, but I eventually found a rhythm and it stopped bothering me. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series.
Aw, this was a lot of fun. I enjoy the author’s other work and I’m glad that I enjoy this one too - and have a series to look forward to! On my library audiobook app it’s titled ‘A Deadly Education: TikTok made me read it’ which is very funny to me, I didn’t know it got big on tiktok. It makes sense though, it’s good YA that has (imo) well-executed themes of privilege & how it can be ignored by those who benefit from it, it’s got an undeniably dark academia-compatible setting, and it’s got… like…. a ratfic (as in fiction coming out of the rationalist community, like uhhh HPMOR) vibe, if ratfic identified itself more often as a viewpoint particularly attractive to teenagers as a kind of bad way of dealing with a specific set of probably temporary dissatisfactions than the ratfic I’ve read has. (That is pretty …
Aw, this was a lot of fun. I enjoy the author’s other work and I’m glad that I enjoy this one too - and have a series to look forward to! On my library audiobook app it’s titled ‘A Deadly Education: TikTok made me read it’ which is very funny to me, I didn’t know it got big on tiktok. It makes sense though, it’s good YA that has (imo) well-executed themes of privilege & how it can be ignored by those who benefit from it, it’s got an undeniably dark academia-compatible setting, and it’s got… like…. a ratfic (as in fiction coming out of the rationalist community, like uhhh HPMOR) vibe, if ratfic identified itself more often as a viewpoint particularly attractive to teenagers as a kind of bad way of dealing with a specific set of probably temporary dissatisfactions than the ratfic I’ve read has. (That is pretty scathing, which may not be merited. Maybe I have just read the worse bits of rationalism.) It did a much better job of grounding the protagonist’s actions in her believable personality as well - honestly that was something I really enjoyed throughout this book.
There’s worldbuilding stuff I could try and nitpick but it didn’t impact my enjoyment of a generally very fun and expansive-feeling world. I get the sense that a lot of very interesting and very different stories could take place in a thousand different places in this world and not diminish each other, which is nice.
Rating 5/5 - just what I want from YA :3
Anissa Dadia does an excellent job as narrator keeping you interested in a book that starts out featuring an angsty teenage dark mage who is in a terrible place by force. Naomi Novik deserves credit for setting up such a difficult task as an author. But as things progress, and the book wins the reader over, we get to see Novik’s ability to subtly include allegory on a number of real world social ills. That and some very nice language work… plus a very good ending making me get the second volume right away. 4.5 stars rounded up!
