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scarlett_f's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Child death, Confinement, Bullying, Panic attacks/disorders, Vomit, Grief, Violence, Death, Gore, Blood, Racism, Stalking, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Sexual content and Death of parent
A recipe of Hunger Games and Harry Potter, but with a pinch of sinister steampunk and dystopian stirred in.litliz's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Blood, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Sexual content, Classism, Confinement, Abandonment, Death, Vomit, Child abuse, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Animal cruelty, Death of parent, Outing, Bullying, Animal death, Murder, Grief, Dysphoria, War, Suicide, and Pregnancy
katjonzz's review
- 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
Graphic: Classism, Violence, Child death, and Death
Moderate: Bullying, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Gore, Murder, and Sexual content
Minor: War, Vomit, and Fire/Fire injury
takarakei's review
- 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
Spice 3/5 🌶
Graphic: Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Violence, and Gore
Moderate: Bullying
oliverreeds's review
- 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
Graphic: Bullying, Death of parent, Animal cruelty, Grief, Mental illness, Vomit, Animal death, Blood, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Child death, Cursing, Murder, and Violence
storykath's review against another edition
- 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
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.
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
blissofalife's review
- 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
4.75
Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, and Violence
Minor: Abandonment, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Cursing, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Vomit, and War
bluejayreads's review
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
- El is even more absurdly powerful than she was in the last book, but doesn’t seem to be surprised by or even notice it, and it doesn’t even cross her mind to question why. I don’t even know if the story wants that question asked, but I want to know why she’s so powerful.
- There’s apparently a whole enchanted gymnasium where many students exercise that somehow never got brought up in book one.
- Neither did a bunch of framed news articles that are apparently all over the school and are critical to the plot now.
- I never got the sense in book one that the school was fantastically big and yet there’s apparently a thousand graduating seniors.
- There’s supposed to be a thing about lingering trauma from El’s experience with the mormouth last book, but the climactic moment of that plot thread ended up very anti-climactic.
- Several threads from book one that either get dropped entirely or get shoved to the background with no warning or mention.
Most of these problems are continuity issues from the previous book, and none of these are “you only notice if you think about it too hard” issues – they were all glaringly obvious to me while reading. And yet with all those obvious issues, I’m going to come back and say that I loved this book.
The main reason for this is that I absolutely adore the trope of the protagonist being so much more powerful than everyone else and all the people around them being repeatedly astonished as they discover bit-by-bit how absurdly powerful the protagonist is. The Last Graduate is that trope incarnate. In book one El by herself kills a monster that previously had only been killed by a group of ten of the world’s top magicians. In this book she is stronger. I cannot put into words how much fun it was to watch her go from being an overlooked non-Enclave kid to the absolute most powerful kid in school and probably the only way most of them are getting out alive.
I can’t say I entirely enjoyed El’s kinda-romance thing with Orion Lake, but I didn’t hate it and it was brief enough that it didn’t affect my enjoyment of the story. There were also some interesting questions raised about Orion and how his magic works. I’m wondering if there’s some underlying reason that there are two absurdly powerful magical teenagers the same age that will get explained in book three.
Yeah, the book has problems. I won’t deny that, and those will probably be detrimental to your enjoyment if you don’t love the overpowered character trope. But I do love that trope and so I still thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I’m very much looking forward to book three.
Graphic: Violence, Child death, Death, and Blood
Moderate: Sexual content, Bullying, and Gore
Minor: Vomit and Animal death
stephernay's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Moderate: Sexual content and Violence
Minor: Animal death, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Child death, and Vomit
mandkips's review
- 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
3.5
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Violence, and Death
Moderate: Child death and Sexual content
Minor: Bullying