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purplatypus's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Violence, Grief, Sexual content, Child abuse, Child death, Drug use, Gore, and War
Minor: Body horror and Death of parent
ashlightgrayson's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-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
This was a fitting conclusion to this trilogy and it did not disappoint. I felt this installment was more event driven compared to the previous two books. The first half of the story focuses a lot on investigating a threat to the enclaves. El has quite a few internal demons she needs to battle on her own both secondary to her loss of Orion and the prophecy that has haunted her since childhood. We finally get to explore the enclaves around the world and the complex politics involved. There is a lot of ethical questions that are brought up with how the enclaves obtain their mana and how they choose to distribute and use it. It's almost like watching different mafia families fight over power, sometimes via less than moral means.
We get to meet the families of a lot of the main and side characters we've gotten to know since book 1. Some of them are worse than others in terms of being terrible people. Even outside of the Scholomance it is clear that there is a mentality of "survival of the fittest". Mages are trying to get the best advantages to survive at the expense of others most of the time. El, through her actions, has found a semblance of respect among the Enclaves. This helps her have leverage in terms of changing some of the systemic ways in which the hierarchy of power is oppressive and immoral.
The tensions are high in this last book. All of it, thankfully, has a great pay off. The build up at the beginning is slower, but there wasn't a moment where I wasn't interested in finding out what was going to happen next. I'm looking forward to reading more series by Novik. This one has been great.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Torture, and Violence
Moderate: Sexual content
queenie_ofthe_void's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
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
3.0
Not sure how I feel about the ending and the pacing. It seemed like this could have been two books, and a lot of side characters fell by the wayside (Chloe, Magnus, Liu, etc). For a final book with a lot of ground to cover, I felt too much time was spent building a relationship between Liesel and El. Not the relationship itself, but that time could've been used to a better purpose. REALLY not happy with how things ended for Orion. His entire arc was learning how to be a 'person' and not 'a hero who kills monsters' but then ended up choosing to spend his life away from loved ones and killing monsters full time. Disappointing tbh.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body horror, Mental illness, Suicide attempt, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Classism, Violence, Gore, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Death, Grief, Emotional abuse, and Injury/Injury detail
trips's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
It just....wasn't a very good conclusion to this series.
The cliff hanger at the end of the 2nd book of course made readers race to get this book, only to be met with a lot of...info dumps that felt unnecessary with it being the finale book, traversing the world with a lot of El angst that was understandable but a bit much, and a conclusion that felt like "ehm...thats it?" in my opinion.
I don't have any problem with El's foray into a kinda weird sapphic sex relationship with Liesl. I thought it was more amusing than anything because Liesl wanted her harem but in the end, El got more of one (lol).
What I didn't like is that I couldn't feel anything for Orion. I wanted to, what he had done to him was awful but it just wasn't written in a way where I truly felt like "wow this poor kid" instead it was like "well, he seems to be doing ok" (and I don't like that! I should've been crying after it was revealed what Ophelia did to him but it just didn't work for me. With that, the villain also fell flat, perhaps because they weren't there all that much, or because of everything written above.
Disappointing, I feel most sad for all the people who love El and Orion together as they got so little in this book!
The cliff hanger at the end of the 2nd book of course made readers race to get this book, only to be met with a lot of...info dumps that felt unnecessary with it being the finale book, traversing the world with a lot of El angst that was understandable but a bit much, and a conclusion that felt like "ehm...thats it?" in my opinion.
I don't have any problem with El's
What I didn't like is that I couldn't feel anything for Orion. I wanted to, what he had done to him was awful but it just wasn't written in a way where I truly felt like "wow this poor kid" instead it was like "well, he seems to be doing ok" (and I don't like that! I should've been crying after it was revealed what
Disappointing, I feel most sad for all the people who love El and Orion together as they got so little in this book!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Grief
Moderate: Confinement
Minor: Sexual content
dabow's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
hopeful
tense
fast-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
My life is different now. Novik is directly up my alley and into my lizard brain.
This book also feels extremely relevant to our current moment, for all that it's about wizard kids who don't know how to use phones. It's also about the little ways we hurt everyone and how we justify it to ourselves, and about how ultimately it's not justifiable. I'm in a daze thinking about climate change and capitalism after finishing this book (and series) and I probably will be for weeks.
This would make an excellent double-feature with "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas."
This book also feels extremely relevant to our current moment, for all that it's about wizard kids who don't know how to use phones. It's also about the little ways we hurt everyone and how we justify it to ourselves, and about how ultimately it's not justifiable. I'm in a daze thinking about climate change and capitalism after finishing this book (and series) and I probably will be for weeks.
This would make an excellent double-feature with "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Classism, Death, and Child abuse
Minor: Religious bigotry, Racism, Sexual content, and Injury/Injury detail
ashlikes's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
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? No
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Grief, Torture, Violence, and War
Moderate: Infidelity, Pregnancy, Bullying, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Physical abuse, Death of parent, Alcohol, Blood, Death, Murder, and Sexual content
Minor: Addiction, Colonisation, Confinement, Dementia, Xenophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, Homophobia, Body shaming, and Fatphobia
mjwhitlock18's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
3.5
For much of this book, El didn’t have a clearly defined goal, and sometimes the plot suffers from meandering twists as a result. There’s a non-zero amount of info dumping, and some of the relationships from previous books aren’t on display as well in this one. I like that everything comes together at the end, but not necessarily tied in a neat tidy bow, because humanity is messy and sometimes shitty tbh. If you enjoyed the first two books, you’ll want to read this conclusion to the series.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Torture, Grief, and Death
Moderate: Child abuse and War
Minor: Sexual content
displacedcactus's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
This review contains spoilers for the end of Book 2 of the Scholomance, so don't read if you haven't read it yet.
.
.
.
.
If you thought things would be a little more pleasant after El left the Scholomance, I had bad news for you. The entire magical world feels very much like an allegory for late-stage capitalism and everything is terrible, plus El is depressed about Orion's actions at the end of Book 2.
I found large chunks of this book to be a real slog. In the first two books it felt like there was a very clear goal: survive until graduation, and try to make sure your allies survive too. But for much of this book, El isn't quite sure of her goal, as she gets pulled in different directions. Then again, sometimes that's what it's like IRL after graduation.
Things get pretty dark in this book. I mean, the whole series has been dark, but there were some twists that showed that the outside world was really even worse than the school, and the real monster is humanity, etc etc.
If you've enjoyed the first two books of the series and you want to know how it ends, you'll probably enjoy this conclusion. But if you were on the fence about the first two, I think you can safely skip this one and make up your own ending in your head (or ask a friend who does read it for the condensed version).
.
.
.
.
If you thought things would be a little more pleasant after El left the Scholomance, I had bad news for you. The entire magical world feels very much like an allegory for late-stage capitalism and everything is terrible, plus El is depressed about Orion's actions at the end of Book 2.
I found large chunks of this book to be a real slog. In the first two books it felt like there was a very clear goal: survive until graduation, and try to make sure your allies survive too. But for much of this book, El isn't quite sure of her goal, as she gets pulled in different directions. Then again, sometimes that's what it's like IRL after graduation.
Things get pretty dark in this book. I mean, the whole series has been dark, but there were some twists that showed that the outside world was really even worse than the school, and the real monster is humanity, etc etc.
If you've enjoyed the first two books of the series and you want to know how it ends, you'll probably enjoy this conclusion. But if you were on the fence about the first two, I think you can safely skip this one and make up your own ending in your head (or ask a friend who does read it for the condensed version).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Torture
Minor: Sexual content
kayladaila's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
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
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Torture, Classism, and Murder
Moderate: War, Violence, Grief, and Murder
Minor: Drug use, Sexual content, Child abuse, Child death, Death, and Death of parent
smithreads's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
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
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Grief, Violence, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Classism, Drug use, Gore, Kidnapping, War, and Sexual content
Moderate: Murder and Death of parent
Minor: Homophobia