Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

“READER, I RAN the f*** away.”

A Deadly Education (Scholomance #1) by Naomi Novik

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CBR Bingo – Strange Worlds Our heroine Galadriel, aka El, a sort of magical Wednesday Adams, is fighting for her life at a teacher-less school of magic, only this Hogwarts is actively trying to kill its students. They attend classes, sleep in dorms, eat in a cafeteria, and are trapped there with no contact with the outside world as they make their way through this distorted high school experience. Everything is leading up to their graduation day, which tests the seniors’ mettle and skill and […]

Harry Potter in the upside down

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

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I really wanted to love this but ended this more meh. It’s definitely trying to channel later instalment Harry Potter, but with more diversity and less heartwarming-ness. Our protagonist is El, short for Galadriel, who is in her next to last year school at the Scholomance, an international wizard high school. Unlike Hogwarts, the Scholomance is self- taught (no Dumbledores or Snapes) and brimming with danger day to day, mostly in the form of magical monsters (Mals, short for maleficaria). In this world, the surges […]

“Mum spent a lot of time in my formative years gently reminding me that people don’t think about us nearly as much as we think they do, because they’re all busy worrying what people are thinking about them.” 

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik

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Imagine a high school that has zero teachers or staff, just students trying to learn and advance. When you show up the first day of freshman year you don’t leave until graduation day senior year. All you have with you is what you had in your pockets or even in your mouth — No suitcases or trunks. It’s a school of magic, but not like Hogwarts or Watford. And that school is actively trying to kill you. This is the world that our “heroine,” El […]

You learn your lessons and stay vigilant, or you die

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

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4.5 stars Official book description: A Deadly Education is set at Scholomance, a school for the magically gifted where failure means certain death (for real) — until one girl, El, begins to unlock its many secrets. There are no teachers, no holidays, and no friendships, save strategic ones. Survival is more important than any letter grade, for the school won’t allow its students to leave until they graduate… or die!    The rules are deceptively simple: Don’t walk the halls alone. And beware of the […]

What if your school was always trying to kill you?

A Deadly Education (The Scholomance, #1) by Naomi Novik

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Semi-brief review because I read this back in October, and my memory of it has faded. I remember being engrossed in it. I love the concept of a magic school that runs itself. And I love the horror aspect of this, that all these kids are trapped in this school because it’s too dangerous outside for them, even though it’s dangerous inside the school as well. I really liked the protagonist, El (short for Galadriel). She is so grouchy and anti-social, but as with all […]

Imagine if high school graduation was a Hunger Games competition

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

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Bingo Review #25 Reader’s Choice in place of Gateway, and Blackout! I was rather hoping to use A Deadly Education for the Gateway square as the introduction to Naomi Novik. I have changed my mind upon completing the novel, but thankfully I still had the Reader’s Choice square open. I was kind of hoping to not use it, but oh well. The premise of this novel and apparently series is brilliant; think Harry Potter’s Hogwarts crossed with Hunger Games. That’s what this is. El is […]



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