A Deadly Education
A Deadly Education (The Scholomance #1)
By: Naomi Novik
“You don’t ever get anything in here without paying for it. Ever.”
I read Naomi Novik’s book Spinning Silver and really enjoyed her writing style and world-building.
I finally started this series and I’m really enjoying it!
This is a story of a wizarding school and the creatures who want to eat wizards.
It’s like a more cutthroat version of Harry Potter and instead of a naive, eager, friendly male protagonist, we have a female protagonist (Galadriel) who is one part Captain Marvel two parts April from Parks and Rec.
I will say that it took a hot minute at the beginning to grasp what was happening. There is no context or background to the world we’re being dropped into. There’s jargon you have to figure out. And the way all of the magic works is a bit confusing.
But if you push through the first few chapters, you will be rewarded.
I really liked Galadriel’s character. Sometimes she was too rude, but generally she had a reason to be. She’s got a chip on her shoulder as she has not been well-liked almost her whole life and people never give her a chance.
The story is told from her point of view so we get to hear all her snarky thoughts— like how she almost constantly wants to punch someone in the head.
She is courageous, resourceful, and sticks to her convictions. Her weakness is her pride, insecurity and her tendency to self-sabotage.
I have a feeling we will meet her mother in later books and I’m not sure if I’m gonna like that. Her mother sounds like a hippie free-spirit and that usually annoys me. El was raised that way but she is more feisty and entrepreneurial than her mom so we will see how that plays out later in the series.
The humor in this book was also done well so props to Novik for that! It was definitely a different vibe and voice than Spinning Silver so it shows her versatility as a writer.
I liked the pictures she included in the book but there were still parts of it that were hard for me to picture.
Whenever I read fantasy books I’m always amazed by how authors can create these worlds and come up with new ways of using magic.
After I read this and started to read some other people’s reviews I was surprised to find claims of racism against this book. I can’t think of any instance of racism that I read. I thought she did a great job of including people from all different nationalities as it is an international school. Our main character is part-British, part-Indian. Apparently there was a remark about dreadlocks in the book but I don’t even remember reading that, and Novik immediately apologized for it though it wasn’t really racist… there were comments about all long hair styles because of the dangers of the school.
It seems that many readers of color have defended her book and agreed that most of the claims are baseless.
There is a theme of privilege in this book as ‘enclavers’ (essentially people with resources and alliances) come in with a lot of advantages compared to wizards like El who have to work harder and more resourcefully to survive. El sees the way enclavers use ‘lesser’ wizards as human shields and she voices her opinions throughout the book.
Recommendation
If you like fantasy books with magic (especially Harry Potter) you should read this! It’s a fun and creative read.
Some of the details and explanations feel tedious at times but I don’t think it’s necessary to fully grasp how the magic aspect works to enjoy the story.
The last line of this book is a gasp moment so I’m going to have to not take too long to get to the other two books. The third one just came out!
Summary and Terms
If you want to know more about the actual story/plot, this bank of terms will help explain
The Scholomance: (I’m not sure how to pronounce this. Like scholar? Or scole—omance? Or shole-omance? I tried to look it up and it was unclear. Fill me in!) a school built by wizards for young wizards to be protected by mals while they get better at their magic; not sure how it was built or how it’s connected to the real world— it sits on the edge of ‘the void’
Mals: nasty creatures of all sizes and varieties (flinger, mimic, blood-clinger, soul-sucker, sirenpsider, scratcher, maw-mouth, eyestalk, etc.) that want to eat wizards because wizards have mana
Mana: what fuels the wizards’ magic; accumulated in crystals or power banks when doing physical activity
Malia: also fuels magic but is obtained from living things, aka, sucking their life source (this is what the bad guys do)
Maleficier: bad wizards who use malia to do magic (think Slytherin)
Mundanes: non-wizards (think Muggles)
Enclaves: communities of wizards throughout the world; the ideal place to live for protection; El and her mom refuse to live in one
Life at the school is about survival. They have to constantly check for mals in all places, even in their food. There are no teachers to protect them, the school is run on some sort of magic. They are cut off from any communication outside the school.
When kids finish their senior year there is a graduation. They must pass through a hall that has essentially become a gauntlet of mals waiting to devour them. The only way to survive graduation day is to accumulate a lot of mana, get really good at spells, and make alliances with other people (who also have a lot of mana and are good at spells).
So everything at the school is a transaction. Even relationships. What can I get out of this that will help me survive?
But El is not your average wizard!
Her great-grandmother prophesied that she would be a destroyer. While other wizards have affinities for languages or working with metal, El’s affinity is for mass destruction. (Think Skye from Marvel Agents of SHIELD).
The catch is… she doesn’t WANT to destroy. She never uses malia. So she is constantly having to work around spells to use them in a safe way.
Add to this struggle that she is an outcast and generally a stand-offish person who refuses to suck-up to other enclaves, even for survival.
How will she survive graduation day?
Well lucky for her, the school’s hero boy, Orion (think Captain America), befriends her and triggers a series of events where the students must work together to save the school from the mals—graduation day came early!
[Content Advisory: a handful of f- and s-words; no sexual content; oh and a lot of death by magic and monsters]
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