Scan barcode
A review by piperhath
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
3.5 stars
A Deadly Education is set at Scholomance, a school for the magically gifted where failure means certain death until El begins to unlock its many secrets. There are no teachers, no holidays, and no real friendships (unless you count alliances) and grades don't really matter. What does however is if you survive because the school only lets you out if you graduate... Or you die. Oh and watch out for all the monsters that are trying to kill you. This should all be no match for El who possesses a unique set of powers that can save them all, but it also might kill them in the process.
Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for sending me a copy of this one to review!
In all honesty, I'm really struggling to review this one. Initially, I was given a copy of this to read through Netgalley and I STRUGGLED to get past the first 50 pages and was really keen to DNF it. I then saw my library had a copy of this one to listen to as an audiobook so I thought I'd give it a try and I became obsessed with the story, characters, and the world. That's my first suggestion, listen to the audiobook if you can because it makes everything so much easier to read.
I personally found the story really informative with so much world-building (some might argue too much compared to dialogue) which I think is why I struggled with the physical copy and went with listening through my library. As someone who loves a good balance of dialogue and world-building, this had too much of the latter in the first 50 pages which made it a little unbearable. In saying that, I'm really glad I did stick it out with the audiobook as I flew through it and it actually made me laugh out loud towards the end there.
A Deadly Education is such a cool concept but there were some aspects I wish the author would have left out or had done differently as I don't think they added too much to the story. The main one I can think of was Orion's and El's "love story" which probably didn't even need to be portrayed that way to achieve the same outcome.
Nevertheless, I'll still read the next books in the series but I think I'll lean more toward the audiobooks in the future over the physical copies. Thank you again to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for sending me a copy of this one!
A Deadly Education is set at Scholomance, a school for the magically gifted where failure means certain death until El begins to unlock its many secrets. There are no teachers, no holidays, and no real friendships (unless you count alliances) and grades don't really matter. What does however is if you survive because the school only lets you out if you graduate... Or you die. Oh and watch out for all the monsters that are trying to kill you. This should all be no match for El who possesses a unique set of powers that can save them all, but it also might kill them in the process.
Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for sending me a copy of this one to review!
In all honesty, I'm really struggling to review this one. Initially, I was given a copy of this to read through Netgalley and I STRUGGLED to get past the first 50 pages and was really keen to DNF it. I then saw my library had a copy of this one to listen to as an audiobook so I thought I'd give it a try and I became obsessed with the story, characters, and the world. That's my first suggestion, listen to the audiobook if you can because it makes everything so much easier to read.
I personally found the story really informative with so much world-building (some might argue too much compared to dialogue) which I think is why I struggled with the physical copy and went with listening through my library. As someone who loves a good balance of dialogue and world-building, this had too much of the latter in the first 50 pages which made it a little unbearable. In saying that, I'm really glad I did stick it out with the audiobook as I flew through it and it actually made me laugh out loud towards the end there.
A Deadly Education is such a cool concept but there were some aspects I wish the author would have left out or had done differently as I don't think they added too much to the story. The main one I can think of was Orion's and El's "love story" which probably didn't even need to be portrayed that way to achieve the same outcome.
Nevertheless, I'll still read the next books in the series but I think I'll lean more toward the audiobooks in the future over the physical copies. Thank you again to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for sending me a copy of this one!