Cannonball Read 14

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Two people with a hero complex off to save the school

The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik

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This is the second book in the Scholomance trilogy: the first, A Deadly Education, told El’s story in the last three weeks of her junior year at the school of magic, the Scholomance, and how her efforts and those of her friends have, she hopes, helped most of the seniors graduate without significant casualties. This second book covers El’s senior year, starting off with what El considers the worst possible assignment: her study hall as the sole senior in a classroom of young, inexperienced freshmen. […]

Help! This school is trying to kill me

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

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El (short for Galadriel) is a trying-to-be-good wizard whose powers seem much more designed to go very big and very bad: there’s even a prophecy about her. She’s a pupil at the Scholomance, in her junior year, desperately trying to stay alive through the unusual challenges being a wizard entails, and gain sufficient alliances with her fellow pupils that she’ll (a) be able to graduate (which means getting out alive from the Scholomance), and (b) get a place in a magical enclave, and not have […]

In other books that I loved a lot this year

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

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Re-read (September 2021) in advance of The Last Graduate!!! it’s interesting, I think the book on the whole is a 4* book but reads a lot like a 3* book from a writing style? Reading this a second time, I’m less confused about the various plot points but it’s still a lot of exposition that you have to chew through, all within El’s head. I think the part that tips it into 4* territory is that the exposition in El’s head is next-level–I read a lot […]

“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 […]

“It’s not because–they don’t want me. They want someone who’s going to cast death spells on their enemies. And if I gave them that, I wouldn’t be me anymore, so I might as well not go live with a bag of dicks.”

The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik

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Picking up immediately after the end of A Deadly Education, The Last Graduate is a gripping read that starts with El holding the cryptic note from her Mum and ends on a terrific cliffhanger.  At one of Novik’s events for the book release she did apologize for both books one and two ending on a cliffhanger.  When she set out to write A Deadly Education she envisioned it ending where The Last Graduate does.  Novik is a writes as she goes author, not a big outliner/planner.  While […]

“I could never afford to look past survival, especially not for anything as insanely expensive as happiness, and I don’t believe in it anyway.”

The Last Graduate (The Scholomance, #2) by Naomi Novik

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Yet another great book I’ve read this year that I really just do not want to write a review for, because it means having to find the words and think thoughts and all that stuff. I always have the most trouble with books I love and give five stars to. It’s always like, HOW DO I CONVEY THIS FEELING which morphs into I DON’T EVEN WANT TO TRY with some whining in there for good measure. I really liked the first book in this series […]



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