Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Not for me

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

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So far, my big plan to read a bunch of dark academia this year isn’t really working out for me (other than The Raven Scholar). I didn’t really like this book. Galadriel (El for short) is a junior at a boarding school for teens with magical powers. The idea behind the school (called the Scholomance) was to keep the students safe from “mals” (maleficaria) which like to eat magical humans and are particularly attracted to teens rather than children or adults. Unfortunately, long ago the defensive mechanisms […]

The Scholomance Trilogy (and a Short Story)

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik

The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik

The Answer Is No by Fredrik Backman

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What would you do if you were basically in a dark version of Hogwarts, where the semi-sentient school barely cares if you live, and you can’t leave for 4 years? If you’re El, short for Galadriel, you spend the first 2. 5 years of that letting your prickly, angry, bitter exterior prevent anyone from getting close to you. This is where A Deadly Education starts off, about halfway through El’s junior year at the Scholomance. We find out over the course of the novel why […]

“Personally I felt I’d had far too many feelings lately and would have liked to repress a lot of them”. Bingo #5!

The Golden Enclaves: Lesson Three of the Scholomance by Naomi Novik

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CBR14 Bingo: “New” – The Golden Enclaves is the new book in the Scholomance trilogy. This is a spoiler free review.  What started in A Deadly Education, and continued in The Last Graduate, is now concluded in The Golden Enclaves.  This series immediately grabbed me from the get go.  Cantankerous El quickly found a place in my heart, along with her companions.  Their harrowing adventures had me constantly engaged.  I found the world setting and magic system fascinating.  Novik kept me continuously curious about the workings […]

more mad about other reviews than about anything in this lovely end to a trilogy

The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik

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I started reading other reviews of this book and got so incensed that I am breaking my rather strict “write reviews in order” rule to respond to some of the criticism. Which is…woooooow are people mad about 17 and 18 year olds not swearing eternal faithfulness to their high school boyfriends. I feel like Novik has hit a really sore nerve for some people who read YA fantasy (or, say, Harry Potter) and believe that it’s normal for teenagers (TEENAGERS) to always end up with […]

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 […]



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