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A review by eleneariel
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
5.0
This is one of my few (or the only) five-star reads for 2020. I cannot praise it highly enough!
All the summaries you see are true (dark feminist Harry Potter, magical school but with no adults, dangerous creatures, dark magic, enemies-to-lovers trope, etc) but yet it is so much more than that. There's questions of identity, the politics of personal relationships, a hint of steampunk. Mostly there's just a really cracking good story. I read it all in one giant gulp because I couldn't focus on anything else until I knew how it ended.
For my tastes, there was just the right amount of world-building: it doesn't painstakingly tell you every detail of how magic works, but you're not left flailing in a sea of unexplained terminology. It felt natural and real.
El is a fun narrator; matter-of-fact, wry, somehow lovable even when she's being annoyingly stubborn.
All the summaries you see are true (dark feminist Harry Potter, magical school but with no adults, dangerous creatures, dark magic, enemies-to-lovers trope, etc) but yet it is so much more than that. There's questions of identity, the politics of personal relationships, a hint of steampunk. Mostly there's just a really cracking good story. I read it all in one giant gulp because I couldn't focus on anything else until I knew how it ended.
For my tastes, there was just the right amount of world-building: it doesn't painstakingly tell you every detail of how magic works, but you're not left flailing in a sea of unexplained terminology. It felt natural and real.
El is a fun narrator; matter-of-fact, wry, somehow lovable even when she's being annoyingly stubborn.