A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

 

From the publisher: From the New York Times bestselling author of Uprooted and Spinning Silver comes the story of an unwilling dark sorceress who is destined to rewrite the rules of magic.

The Scholomance is a legendary school from folklore that author Naomi Novik has claimed for her own in A Deadly Education, the first book in a new series. I love Novik’s Temeraire series and enjoyed her two fairy tales Uprooted and Spinning Silver as well.

It took me about 80 pages to get into A Deadly Education. I was asking myself who wrote it, as Novik normally captivates me from page 1, and that did not happen with A Deadly Education. However, it finally clicked in, and I enjoyed the last two thirds of the book. I feel I need to start over and see what I think of the first third the second time through.

The world building is amazing if at times a little too detailed. There are definitely info dump passages. There are new vocabulary words that are a little too similar and I could have done with a glossary. The character development is surface level – hopefully we will get to know these characters better in book two. The protagonist Galadriel is a little too stereotypically an anti-hero; the hero Orion is a little too stereotypically a hero.

There is a fun obligatory Lord of the Rings reference for Ringers, and the ending is a shock and a slam dunk and makes me wonder how I can wait a year for book two.

My one big issue with A Deadly Education is that Novik’s main character, Galadriel aka El, is a mean bully. She’s smart, talented, powerful, and resourceful. But she’s also throwing herself a lifelong pity party, which got old with her as the first person narrator, and she is a mean, rude, bully. Especially right now, that strikes a very wrong note with me.

I will read book two for the action and wonder, but I hope El shows some serious growth as a person, and I hope we see character development in the rest of the cast. If you enjoyed Harry Potter and might enjoy reading another series about a magical high school, I recommend A Deadly Education. It’s available at the Galesburg Public Library as a print book and an ebook.

I read an advance reader copy from Netgalley, but I did check the final copy to make sure there was no glossary.