Reviews with content warning for Murder - The Last Graduate

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The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik

32 reviews

oliverreeds's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

5.0

FIVE STARS IT'S SO GOOD and the time skips are great and i loved this book. i wont lie this is what i needed and im so pissed off at the ending but in a good way and im..asdfno;aje

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storykath's review against another edition

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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.

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nutm3g's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring 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? It's complicated

5.0

I devoured The Last Graduate like my life depended on it, or more accurately as if I were a maw-mouth on a war path towards my next treat of a graduating Scholomance class. El's heroic journey develops wonderfully, albeit emotionally draining as she comes to terms with her potential and destiny. Orion and El truly appear as opposites perfectly balancing one another out, or as two sides of the same coin. I was delighted at the appearance of two queer couples (mlm and wlw) as well as a vaguely mentioned background love triangle turned triad. The cliffhanger has me desperate to get my hands on the next book in the series, even though I know the first chapter will most likely appear devastating.

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mickey__'s review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

INTRODUCTION

The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik is the sequel to A Deadly Education. It continues straight from the first book and is, as a whole, a lot more focused on El's character development and how the Scholomance works.
There are two reasons that I did not rate this book is not 5 stars - I took off half a star for each reason.

Rating: 4⭐️/ 5⭐️
Age: 14+
Genre: YA, Fantasy
Similar books: The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake, If We Were Villains by ML Rio, These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

❃REASON NUMBER ONE-❃

The info dumps were still going strong in this book. I often found myself skipping entire pages because of it. I still understood the book as a whole, however, so a lot of it seemed very unnecessary. It was almost like a conscious stream of thought that ended up becoming a useless tangent. -0.5 stars

“No matter how hard you’ve worked, there’s always something to worry about.”

❃REASON NUMBER TWO-❃

Although the romance in this book was absolutely adorable, I felt as if I completely missed the development of it. In other words, it went from 0-100 in 5 seconds. This didn't massively impact my enjoyment of their relationship, but it did confuse me and leave me feeling a bit unsatisfied. -0.5 stars

“There’s no such thing as normal people, I said, a desperate flailing. “There’s just people, and some of them are miserable, and some of them are happy, and you’ve the same right to be happy as any of them—no more and no less.”

CONCLUSION

Overall, this book was an incredible sequel with the best/worst cliffhanger ever known to man like omg what the actual-
ANYWAY I absolutely cannot wait for the third book. I would recommend this series to anyone who wants a magic boarding school vibe (an older Harry Potter style) with a rivals-to-lovers slash an 'I want to kill you oh wait you're kinda hot-' romance.

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adalieslittlelibrary's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense fast-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

5.0

I am sick. This book was spectacular. Never have I ever been pulled into a story so quickly and so completely. I was utterly sucked in from page one. Everything else in my life became a nuisance. I knew I would like this book simply because I loved the first one, but this book exceeded all of my expectations. The characters, the world, the magic system, all of it was just *chef’s kiss. And then, with about 100 pages left, it took a turn that shot it into my top read, maybe ever. I loved every second of this book. And I am absolutely sick that we won’t have the next one until likely September of 2022! Talk about a cliffhanger ending. I am completely and utterly blown away. I felt like this book perfectly catered to everything I need in a book: flawed characters, snarky leads, the lightest dusting of romance, high action, and magic. I honestly can’t even begin to describe how much love I have for this book and cannot wait for the next installment.

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