Review – The Last Graduate (The Scholomance, Book 2) by Naomi Novik (4/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 400 pages
Publisher: Del Rey
Release Date: September 28, 2021
ISBN-13 : 978-0593128862
Stand Alone or Series: 2nd book in The Scholomance series
Source: Borrowed eBook from Library
Rating: 4/5 stars
“In Wisdom, Shelter. That’s the official motto of the Scholomance. I suppose you could even argue that it’s true—only the wisdom is hard to come by, so the shelter’s rather scant.
Our beloved school does its best to devour all its students—but now that I’ve reached my senior year and have actually won myself a handful of allies, it’s suddenly developed a very particular craving for me. And even if I somehow make it through the endless waves of maleficaria that it keeps throwing at me in between grueling homework assignments, I haven’t any idea how my allies and I are going to make it through the graduation hall alive.
Unless, of course, I finally accept my foretold destiny of dark sorcery and destruction. That would certainly let me sail straight out of here. The course of wisdom, surely.
But I’m not giving in—not to the mals, not to fate, and especially not to the Scholomance. I’m going to get myself and my friends out of this hideous place for good—even if it’s the last thing I do.”
Series Info/Source: This is the second book in the Scholomance trilogy. I borrowed an eBook of this from my library.
Thoughts: I love the idea of the Scholomance but some of the issues I had with the first book in this series continue here. This book picks up where the last book left off; El and crew are starting off their senior year. The school seems out to get El and El is determined to help all of the kids in her class graduate, not just her allies.
As mentioned, I had some of the same issues with this book that I had with the first book. The mals are still not well described and I have trouble picturing some of them. Again this varies with the mal being discussed but was still an issue. I did grow more attached to the characters here, but still didn’t love them. They are just all kind of mean to each other and don’t form very cohesive friendships. The friendships seem to thrive more out of one-sided determination than anything else.
Then there is the pacing, some parts were just slow. I especially thought the large section of the book where El and crew were doing runs in the gym over and over and over got very repetitive. I was like, okay I get it…let’s move on. Additionally, there’s a bit too much of El getting lost and sidetracked in her head for pages while in the middle of action scenes. Lastly, this ends on an absolutely horrible cliffhanger which was pretty predictable but still pissed me off.
All the above complaining aside I do really love the idea of the Scholomance and the world built here. I also really love the mals and the fighting and how magic works in this world. The amazing world building and intriguing premise is enough to keep me reading the story. The characters are also slowly growing on me (like a monstrous mold) and I am moderately curious about what will happen to them in the final book.
My Summary (4/5): Overall, hands down, the strongest part of this book is the world-building and the intriguing magic. I love the premise here but the book definitely has its flaws. The pacing is slow at points and El spends too much time in her head during critical moments. The characterization is a bit weak, especially for side characters, and I still struggle to picture a lot of mals. Despite these issues, I do plan on finishing this series because I love the Scholomance itself and am incredibly curious about how things will go with this world, their magic, and their children.
