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katherine_alexis's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Sexual content
racheloddment's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Violence, and Gore
Minor: Sexual content
saurahsaurus's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
hopeful
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content, Violence, Gore, and Death
Minor: Death of parent and Vomit
bookwisp's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Now a Senior in the Scholomance, El is in a better position than she’d ever imagined. She’s going into her final year with allies – friends – and they might just have the beginnings of a plan. With graduation looming ever closer, she and the rest of her class are scrambling to learn as much as they can to make it out of the gates. But the Scholomance has changed the rules of the game and you know what they say about best laid plans…
What a wonderful sequel! The Scholomance continues to delight, disturb and fascinate. I devoured this very quickly. Without giving too much away, the plot headed in a direction I didn’t expect but thoroughly enjoyed.
El continues to grow as a character. If you found her abrasive in the first novel (and couldn’t forgive her for it, as I did), you’ll likely find her more palatable here. Her friendships with Liu, Aadhya and even Chloe are very central to El’s development, even if they didn’t get as much ‘page’ time as I’d have preferred. I did get a kick outta El’s unwanted and unwelcome gaggle of helpless freshmen who also contribute to her character development.
The prose still suffered from the same faults as A Deadly Education – a little dense in places and it interrupted itself to world build a little too many times – but it’s not a deal breaker, really. Through the latter half of this book, the momentum just builds and builds and – honestly? – you’re probably going to want to clear your schedule to ride it out. It’ll probably become clear to you when you read it, but the final act genuinely made me feel quite emotional. Look, people being brave, struggling together against impossible odds?? That stuff MOVES me, okay :’)
Because my TBR pile mountain is so huge, I usually find myself reading backlist books where the whole series is out. As a result, I’m decidedly out of practice waiting for the next book to be published. I REQUEST and REQUIRE The Golden Enclaves now, please and thank you.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, and Death
queenie_ofthe_void's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
The world building and story are so interesting! I normally stray away from "magic kids go to magic school" but this series is all the best parts of Harry Potter and Hunger Games smashed together. Novik continues to be one of my favorite storytellers, even if at some points it does feel more "tell" and less "show".
Content Warnings
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail and Sexual content
sabrina22's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death
Minor: Sexual content
sezzler's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Classism, Confinement, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexual content
storykath's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I'm still reeling from the end of the book as I write this, but I'll try to collect my thoughts.
First of all, the whole premise of this series is the perfect mix of thrilling and dark and ingenious. The attention to detail and the immersive storytelling create a fantastic atmosphere. Even though this is the second book, there's still a decent amount of time spent on explanations/worldbuilding, and one of my few criticisms would be that these explanatory snippets, though interesting and relevant, sometimes interrupted the plot in an awkward place. We'd stop in the middle of a conversation to dissect some interesting tidbit, and by the time the conversation went on I'd forgotten what was going on. It was all still interesting to read and I didn't mind it much.
The character growth in this book, especially compared to the first book, is fairly slow and subtle, but it comes through like a punch to the gut at the best moments. Especially towards the end, there were many moments where I audibly gasped or made other incredulous gestures as the threads all tied together. Sometimes it was painful to see the characters apparently not growing or changing for most of the novel, but in retrospect it was an intentional choice to portray them that way, especially since the story is from El's perspective, who doesn't always pick up on what's going on behind the scenes in other people's lives.
It had been over a year since I read ADE, so I was a bit lost at the start of this book - there's not much of a recap or handy reminders to jog your memory, but a quick Google search solved that for me.
The writing style is amazing. There are vivid (and sometimes appropriately disturbing) descriptions, and El's voice as a teenager with the world on her shoulders was authentic, exciting, and often hilarious! Despite the darker contents of the book, El's narration and quick wit provided some great laugh-out-loud comic relief.
First of all, the whole premise of this series is the perfect mix of thrilling and dark and ingenious. The attention to detail and the immersive storytelling create a fantastic atmosphere. Even though this is the second book, there's still a decent amount of time spent on explanations/worldbuilding, and one of my few criticisms would be that these explanatory snippets, though interesting and relevant, sometimes interrupted the plot in an awkward place. We'd stop in the middle of a conversation to dissect some interesting tidbit, and by the time the conversation went on I'd forgotten what was going on. It was all still interesting to read and I didn't mind it much.
The character growth in this book, especially compared to the first book, is fairly slow and subtle, but it comes through like a punch to the gut at the best moments. Especially towards the end, there were many moments where I audibly gasped or made other incredulous gestures as the threads all tied together. Sometimes it was painful to see the characters apparently not growing or changing for most of the novel, but in retrospect it was an intentional choice to portray them that way, especially since the story is from El's perspective, who doesn't always pick up on what's going on behind the scenes in other people's lives.
It had been over a year since I read ADE, so I was a bit lost at the start of this book - there's not much of a recap or handy reminders to jog your memory, but a quick Google search solved that for me.
The writing style is amazing. There are vivid (and sometimes appropriately disturbing) descriptions, and El's voice as a teenager with the world on her shoulders was authentic, exciting, and often hilarious! Despite the darker contents of the book, El's narration and quick wit provided some great laugh-out-loud comic relief.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Violence, and Gore
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Classism, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexual content
Minor: Death of parent, Child death, Murder, and Pregnancy
juliette_95's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Blood
Minor: Sexual content
abigails_books's review against another edition
dark
funny
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
CW: mild sex scene, general monster-fighting violence
Rating: 4 stars
"Orion didn't look over at me again, even when he surfaced in between the killing waves; he was too busy. It was just as well, because if he'd looked over at me, I'd have smiled stupidly back at him. I was glad, so glad, even pinned down in this room with all the monsters in the world trying to come at me, at Orion, because it wasn't despair in his way after all; it was just the clumsiness of learning. He could want other things. I wasn't the only thing he'd ever want; I was just the first other thing he'd wanted."
This book was very cute and overall I enjoyed it as the follow-up to A Deadly Education, Lesson One of the Scholomance.
Summary: Galadriel 'El' Higgins and her cast of friends, including Orion Lake, who was quickly firming up to boyfriend status in this book, start their senior year at The Scholomance, picking up exactly where we left off in A Deadly Education. As a new senior, El quickly realizes the school, its own entity and almost a character, is trying to tell her something. At first, she thinks the school is out to get her but eventually realizes the school is trying to tell her it wants to help her save all the students from the quickly breaking-down school they are all locked in for protection from the vicious monsters, or mals, that are hungry for wizard children's mana, or magical life force.
Upon realizing what the school wants from her, and realizing that her dark sorceress prophecy actually helps her to fulfill her mission, El and her friends come up with a plan to save every student in the school and trap all (most) of the mals in the world within the school, before pushing it into the void — trapped, but not really taking up space either.
Along the way, El and Orion get much more familiar with each other, and El learns another level of what makes Orion who he is, which was probably the best part of the book.
My first thoughts:
I felt a little bored in the first half of the book, despite a few very cute moments and sarcastic comments between El and Orion. The main reason I felt this way was because I realized the major plot of the book didn't fully start until the second half of the book.
Some gossip around this series is that Novik originally intended to only write two books, but after writing a majority realized it would work better as a three-book arc. To me, this rumor explains a lot because the first two books felt like they very easily could have been one book.
Issues:
I felt the themes in this book would have been stronger had it simply been a continuation of the first book, and also the relationship building between El and her growing circle of friends. I definitely think Orion and El's relationship would have made much more sense to read it in one book develop from enemies to actual lovers, rather than begrudging almost lovers at the end of the first book.
I also think the boring bit at the beginning of this book wouldn't have been so boring if it had been bridging the cliffhanger from book 1 to the major plot of book 2 — it probably would have felt more cohesive that way and also she wouldn't have wasted so much word space regurgitating history and facts from the first book, which is a YA pet-peeve of mine. If we read the first book, we know -- you don't need to re-write half of it. So anyway, I did end up skimming quite a bit of the first half because it was mostly re-written from the first book.
However, once I got through the first half, El and Orion finally engaged in a more realistic and continuous way, and the plot both sped up and steamed up if you catch my drift. But, then it was over, and with that cliffhanger, I mean! I just would have loved about 200 more pages? Is that too much to ask for?
All in all, I'll have to wait to read the final book to decide how I feel, but I do think this could have been in A Deadly Education instead of its own book.
Things I liked:
-Seeing El and Orion's love story finally come to fruition was exactly what I wanted from this book, so it delivered on that front.
-El's developing deep friendships with Liu and Aadhya was excellent, and her growing relationship with her familiar Precious was hilarious.
-So much of these books is just what El is going through and sometimes the dialogue is non-existent. However, it was great to finally get in-depth conversations between El and Orion and, most importantly, to get to understand who Orion actually is as opposed to what El assumes. I finally felt like I understood his character rather than seeing her inward feelings about why he made certain decisions.
-It was very CUTE, which is what I WANTED, and I definitely squealed and smiled my way through the latter half of the book. It also kept up the sarcasm and dark optimism from the first book, which I appreciated.
Overall, I just think I'm a more mature, longer book reader, but these books have been a very nice little break. I almost feel like I'm my younger self while reading it, which is a really nice little get-away.
Rating: 4 stars
"Orion didn't look over at me again, even when he surfaced in between the killing waves; he was too busy. It was just as well, because if he'd looked over at me, I'd have smiled stupidly back at him. I was glad, so glad, even pinned down in this room with all the monsters in the world trying to come at me, at Orion, because it wasn't despair in his way after all; it was just the clumsiness of learning. He could want other things. I wasn't the only thing he'd ever want; I was just the first other thing he'd wanted."
This book was very cute and overall I enjoyed it as the follow-up to A Deadly Education, Lesson One of the Scholomance.
Summary: Galadriel 'El' Higgins and her cast of friends, including Orion Lake, who was quickly firming up to boyfriend status in this book, start their senior year at The Scholomance, picking up exactly where we left off in A Deadly Education. As a new senior, El quickly realizes the school, its own entity and almost a character, is trying to tell her something. At first, she thinks the school is out to get her but eventually realizes the school is trying to tell her it wants to help her save all the students from the quickly breaking-down school they are all locked in for protection from the vicious monsters, or mals, that are hungry for wizard children's mana, or magical life force.
Upon realizing what the school wants from her, and realizing that her dark sorceress prophecy actually helps her to fulfill her mission, El and her friends come up with a plan to save every student in the school and trap all (most) of the mals in the world within the school, before pushing it into the void — trapped, but not really taking up space either.
Along the way, El and Orion get much more familiar with each other, and El learns another level of what makes Orion who he is, which was probably the best part of the book.
My first thoughts:
I felt a little bored in the first half of the book, despite a few very cute moments and sarcastic comments between El and Orion. The main reason I felt this way was because I realized the major plot of the book didn't fully start until the second half of the book.
Some gossip around this series is that Novik originally intended to only write two books, but after writing a majority realized it would work better as a three-book arc. To me, this rumor explains a lot because the first two books felt like they very easily could have been one book.
Issues:
I felt the themes in this book would have been stronger had it simply been a continuation of the first book, and also the relationship building between El and her growing circle of friends. I definitely think Orion and El's relationship would have made much more sense to read it in one book develop from enemies to actual lovers, rather than begrudging almost lovers at the end of the first book.
I also think the boring bit at the beginning of this book wouldn't have been so boring if it had been bridging the cliffhanger from book 1 to the major plot of book 2 — it probably would have felt more cohesive that way and also she wouldn't have wasted so much word space regurgitating history and facts from the first book, which is a YA pet-peeve of mine. If we read the first book, we know -- you don't need to re-write half of it. So anyway, I did end up skimming quite a bit of the first half because it was mostly re-written from the first book.
However, once I got through the first half, El and Orion finally engaged in a more realistic and continuous way, and the plot both sped up and steamed up if you catch my drift. But, then it was over, and with that cliffhanger, I mean! I just would have loved about 200 more pages? Is that too much to ask for?
All in all, I'll have to wait to read the final book to decide how I feel, but I do think this could have been in A Deadly Education instead of its own book.
Things I liked:
-Seeing El and Orion's love story finally come to fruition was exactly what I wanted from this book, so it delivered on that front.
-El's developing deep friendships with Liu and Aadhya was excellent, and her growing relationship with her familiar Precious was hilarious.
-So much of these books is just what El is going through and sometimes the dialogue is non-existent. However, it was great to finally get in-depth conversations between El and Orion and, most importantly, to get to understand who Orion actually is as opposed to what El assumes. I finally felt like I understood his character rather than seeing her inward feelings about why he made certain decisions.
-It was very CUTE, which is what I WANTED, and I definitely squealed and smiled my way through the latter half of the book. It also kept up the sarcasm and dark optimism from the first book, which I appreciated.
Overall, I just think I'm a more mature, longer book reader, but these books have been a very nice little break. I almost feel like I'm my younger self while reading it, which is a really nice little get-away.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content and Violence