Review – A Deadly Education: A Novel (The Scholomance Book 1) by Naomi Novik (4.5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 336 pages
Publisher: Del Rey
Release Date: September 29, 2020
ISBN-13 : 978-0593128480
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in The Scholomance series
Source: Christmas Gift
Rating: 4.5/5 stars

“I decided that Orion Lake needed to die after the second time he saved my life.

Everyone loves Orion Lake. Everyone else, that is. Far as I’m concerned, he can keep his flashy combat magic to himself. I’m not joining his pack of adoring fans.

I don’t need help surviving the Scholomance, even if they do. Forget the hordes of monsters and cursed artifacts, I’m probably the most dangerous thing in the place. Just give me a chance and I’ll level mountains and kill untold millions, make myself the dark queen of the world.

At least, that’s what the world expects. Most of the other students in here would be delighted if Orion killed me like one more evil thing that’s crawled out of the drains. Sometimes I think they want me to turn into the evil witch they assume I am. The school certainly does.

But the Scholomance isn’t getting what it wants from me. And neither is Orion Lake. I may not be anyone’s idea of the shining hero, but I’m going to make it out of this place alive, and I’m not going to slaughter thousands to do it, either.

Although I’m giving serious consideration to just one.”

Series Info/Source: This is the first book in the Scholomance series. I got this book as a gift for Christmas.

Story (4/5): This story was fairly simple but well done. We basically spend most of the story watching El and her classmates try to survive the Scholomance, a deadly rotating “safe” place for child magicians. The story starts out a bit slow and some of the things going on were hard to visualize, but as the story continued it really picked up pace and I began to really love it. Watching El navigate both politics and vicious monsters was exciting and intriguing. I also loved the magic system presented here.

Characters (5/5): The characters in here are amazing. They are all very complex and I love how they innately have certain tendencies/abilities that they are often trying to fight against. I especially loved El, she is born innately evil but works her butt off to not be so, despite it being a much tougher path. She was incredibly intriguing and I loved every minute of reading about her.

Setting (5/5): I absolutely loved the Scholomance, this was such an interesting idea and soooo intriguing. The pictures in the front cover of the book really helped the reader to visualize the Scholomance because the concept is a bit hard to describe. I enjoyed every minute in this setting and am curious about the broader world.

Writing Style (4/5): I did think the start to this was a bit rough. In the first 15-20% of the book the story was a bit choppy, I had trouble engaging with El, and just trouble picturing the monsters and what was going on. Things picked up pace and became much more engaging as we got further in. I still had some trouble visualizing the monsters throughout. It would be awesome to have some sort of guide to these different monsters in the next book; there were a lot of them and I had trouble keeping them straight.

My Summary (4.5/5): Overall there was a lot I enjoyed in this book and a few things that could have been better. I loved the characters, the setting of the Scholomance and the magic system. The plot was a bit thin and the story started out a bit slow and hard engage with. However, in the end, I enjoyed it and plan on reading the next book in the series. Novik has been a bit hit and miss for me. I loved “Uprooted”, did not like “Spinning Silver” and I enjoyed the first couple “Temeraire” novels but then got kind of bored with that series. I am curious to see how she continues with this series.