Part action-packed, part comedy and part romance, The Last Graduate is a surprisingly heartwarming tale of how friendship can blossom in the darkest of places. You're able to see how El and her crew transform into decent human beings all while cracking a few laughs along the way. By the end, you're hopeful and rooting for their impossibly crazy plan only to be left with the biggest of cliffhangers. Can't wait for the third book!

I LOVED this book!! This was absolutely one of the best books I’ve read this year, if not the best (and I’ve read quite a few hyped up/well rated books this year). The world building is amazing, the characters are both likeable and complex. The intricacies of the plot and thought processes of the students and the school politics are so impressive. I really enjoyed the first book and this one is even better. The suspense, especially at the end, is so good, I didn’t even mind the cliffhanger ending. It just made me that much more excited for the next book.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for providing me access to this eARC for my honest opinion!!

If you liked the first book in the series, you're going to like this one too. It does a good job of expanding the world and raising the stakes, though there is a bit of wheel-spinning as well. Novik answered a lot of questions I had about the school itself, as well as introducing more information about the outside world. There's also a good bit of character progression. My one gripe with this book is the pacing - sometimes it feels like the plot has stalled out and other times it feels like it's accelerating too quickly. If you're not fond of cliffhanger endings...well, be warned.

The first book was definitely a favorite of mine earlier this year and after that ending I was dying for the sequel. I'm pleased to say The Last Graduate didn't disappoint. I still absolutely love El. She's definitely not your typical heroine, but I just love her. If you like magical stories set in a school, this is one you need to pick up. It has a budding romance, but that storyline isn't the main focus. Another great Novik book and I absolutely cannot wait for the next installment.

Magical, dark academia with some great plot twists. The novel is engaging and fast paced, a fitting sequel to A Deadly Education. Naomi Novik knows how to spin a story and this is a series you don't want to miss

TL;DR: A solid second installment that brings fresh plot twists. My rating 3 of 5 stars.

The Last Graduate is a solid follow up to A Deadly Education. I enjoyed the first enough to request an e-ARC of the second installment when it popped up on NetGalley. That said, my feelings on the Scholomance series are merely mildly positive. I enjoy reading them, but they’re not making my list of favorites that I recommend to friends and family.

The Last Graduate opens with a reminder of the pretty ominous cliffhanger of the first book--a grave note from El’s mother from the outside, warning her to stay away from romantic interest, Orion Lake. While El occasionally ponders why her mother sent the warning, she largely ignores it and that question does not get satisfactorily resolved in this sequel.

Despite that letdown, Novik definitely brings new sources of excitement and conflict into the Scholomance. As predicted, El experiences quite a rise in her social cachet after the events of book 1. So while there’s still some repetitive talk of strategy for dodging mals in classrooms and cafeterias, the plot has graduated (heh heh) beyond questions of mere day-to-day survival. From Day 1 of the new school year El notices some major shifts in how the mysterious school operates. She eventually realizes that the school is trying to communicate with her and train her to aid in fulfilling its mission.

Novik closes the book with yet another big cliffhanger that pretty much guarantees I’ll likely read the next book as well. To be honest, I am intrigued where the plot will go and how relationships will hold up and develop after El, her allies, and her conclave frenemies are back in the outside world.

Why only 3 stars? I still find El’s voice and tone pretty grating. I hoped her change in circumstances would have mitigated her contradictory mix of self-importance and self-deprecation. It didn’t. The scale just shifted a bit more in the direction of self-importance. Also, some may recall the controversy over Novik’s racist description of Black students in the first book. While perhaps not as egregious, I still definitely experienced moments of discomfort in how non-white characters were portrayed. In particular, the description of Liu (El’s maleficer-turned-strict-maliya ally and friend)’s family didn’t sit right with me coming from a white author. It read like a caricature (and condemnation) of a domineering Asian family willing to prioritize the good of the family at large at the cost of the safety and survival of one daughter. Let’s please get some BIPOC & AAPI editors to read for this shit in book 3!!!

This book was absolutely MAGICAL! Truly an amazing book. It’s been a long time since a series has been able to capture my imagination and get me excited like this series has (probably since Harry Potter), but Naomi Novik has done it again!
The setting alone—the dark, dangerous school of magic. Plus, the unusual characterization with El, and the romance. Not to mention the diversity really sets it apart, although I hope there isn’t a huge increase in this because then it may feel like the author has a political axe to grind.
I loved the plot, the romance(Orion is fascinating!), everything! Well, everything except that cliffhanger of an ending. I loudly recommend this book to anyone and everyone.

I was so excited to see this sequel to A Deadly Education because I couldn't wait to find out more about El's adventures at the Scholomance. This novel did not disappoint. Novik sucked me back into this magical world where El and Orion continue to be the heroes. You may not be satisfied by the ending, but El's journey to graduation day is full of twists and turns that will keep you turning the pages. I don't want to give any spoilers, but be assured that El makes some new friends and learns a lot about herself and the school along the way. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this digital ARC.

I think this cliffhanger is really going to do a number on a lot of readers. However, it was overall a very interesting and compelling story, which kept veering off in directions I didn’t see coming, right up to the last sentence. I enjoyed the character development and overarching themes of this book.

However, after listening to “A Deadly Education” as an audiobook and then reading this, I think this story would read better in an audio format. There’s a lot of times in El’s narration where she suddenly jumps to a related topic/memory/etc. to explain something, and I found myself having to keep rereading sections to fully grasp them. I will definitely be listening to this book as well once it is released.

The Last Graduate is the second novel in the Scholomance trilogy. The novels in this series, for me, should be read in order to fully appreciate and understand the content. This novel does end with a cliffhanger ending, so waiting for the next novel is going to be very difficult as I am anxious to see what happens next! The story continues to follow El as she begins her senior year at the school. With many secrets and dangers continuing to lurk around every corner, it will not be a dull year for these magically gifted students.

El continues to explore her relationships with her newfound group that was formed in the previous novel. Her friends and alliance members, Liu and Aadhya continue to be a great support system. Their dynamic provides a nice balance between everyday friendship dynamics/character growth navigation and the main plot of dangers in the school. El also continues to navigate her complicated relationship with heroic Orion Lake. Now that she has received a warning for being near him, she has a new obstacle to overcome. Their relationship initially seems to be an enigma to the characters and to the reader, but their relationship grows a lot with the dynamics between them changing. I loved reading about their complex relationship as they try to navigate their feelings and the many dangers around them.

This senior class has around 1000 students left after starting around 1600, which is vastly larger than the 800 (or less) that is usually present at this point. I loved that these statistics were weaved into the narration as it reaffirms the dangers that the students face each year. With the change in the number of students, they are not facing a huge unknown about how making passes the graduation test will go. With odds seemingly in their favor, El starts to think about life after graduation for the first time. The mal continues to pose threats to the students, but their attacks are different from the first novel. In A Deadly Education, there is mal after mal presented to the reader, so it was very interesting to see how the dangers have changed based on the ending of the last novel.

Overall, this is an excellent transition novel between the first and third novels in the trilogy. I loved the amount of character growth and the journeys that the characters go through which helps this novel not feel like a “filler,” which can happen to some second novels in a trilogy. I greatly enjoyed reading this novel with the multiple twists, endless dangers, and great characters to create an interesting story. Although I loved El in this novel, there was a part of me that missed her being a very snarky loner as her being an outcast added an even greater layer to the tension of the story. She is still sassy as a character, but it now is presented in a new way given her circumstances have changed. This novel was an excellent addition to the series, but, again, the ending is very frustrating because now I really want to know what will happen next!

**I give a special thank you to Netgalley, the publisher, Del Rey Books, and the author for the opportunity to read this enjoyable novel. The opinions expressed are completely my own.**

The Last Graduate follows Galadriel in her senior year at the Scholomance as she and the other seniors prepare to make the death run through the graduation hall. Staying alive means you graduated.

While I liked the snark in this book as much as I liked the first book the story in this one didn't hold up. Most of the book was spent planning something that was hugely anti-climatic. The big twist at the end of the first book still wasn't ever explained. This book also ends on a cliff hanger that seems truly unnecessary. Overall this book felt like there was no real risk to any of the characters.

Still good, would still recommend, but maybe wait until the whole series is out because the wait with the cliff hangers is killer.

4.5 ⭐️

OMGGG OMGGG. Okay, this book definitely surpassed my expectations and I will say with all confidence that this book is soooo much better than A Deadly Education.

We pick right up from the ending of A Deadly Education with that note. (I will say after reading this book, I’m still unsure what it means).

Galadriel grew sooo much in this book. She was still prickly and quick to anger, but that’s what we love about her. We meet new characters and make new alliances. I absolutely loved the friendship between El, Aadhya, and Liu. I squealed a lot. We get more monsters and even a couple familiars which I can’t wait to see more of in the next book.

The romance definitely kicked up a notch; the banter was still *chef’s kiss* We get more of an understanding into Orion’s background and see some vulnerable parts of him.

That ending. THAT ENDING! I got major anxiety reading the last 10% cause I KNEW. I knewww that something was going to happen. This definitely ends on a major cliff hanger and now I don’t know what to do with myself as I anxiously await for book 3 and pray to the literary gods I get selected to read an ARC.

New York Times Bestselling Author Naomi Novik crafted a darkly beautiful version of our world, where dangerous creatures called Maleficaria swarm adolescent wizards to devour their magic. To give their children a better chance at surviving puberty, adult wizards built a school in the void. For four years, these teens learn spells, forge alliances, and do whatever they can to stay alive.

Because while the school is safer than the outside world, it is not safe. Maleficaria do get in, and only twenty-five percent of students make it through all four years and graduate. The Scholomance is boarding school hell - more of a nightmare prison, actually - but if a student beats the one-in-four-odds of survival, they return home with the skills and connections to build their adult lives.


The Last Graduate picks up exactly where A Deadly Education left off. Galadriel – or El – is now a senior at the Scholomance, and is no longer an outcast. She has a graduation alliance. She has friends. She also has a half-healed gut-wound and a target on her back. She did everything in her power to ensure the prior year’s seniors graduated safely, but they wouldn’t know if it worked until the end of the year when El’s class graduates.

She’d shown her power, though, and the school sees El as a threat. So do other students.

This year the Scholomance has given El an impossible schedule, stuck her in a secluded classroom with a bunch of helpless freshmen, and sent all the Maleficaria after her. It appears as if the school is intent on taking El down, and it’s not alone. Students don’t normally turn on one another, too busy fighting Maleficaria to openly attack one another.

This year, everything changes.

The Last Graduate is the perfect follow-up to A Deadly Education. It’s another stellar novel, and I couldn’t put it down. In fact, I read it twice, and I know I’ll read it again because I not only pre-ordered a print copy, but also the audiobook. Anisha Dadia did such a fantastic job narrating A Deadly Education, I know the audiobook for The Last Graduate will be just as good.

El has finally made it to the last year of her "education" and now the stakes are higher than ever. After the ending of the last book, we know that she has to stay away from Orion, but will she? Everything seems to get darker and darker for the characters, until eventually it's either get out or be out.



It's so hard to write a review without giving much away! Thank you Netgalley and Random House Publishing for the . This novel is suburb and will leave so many readers mad and excited for the next chapter!

Biggest spoiler warning is that yes, this book ends on a HUGE cliffhanger, one so big that if you know you can't handle cliffhangers, just don't read it until the third book comes out!

It's so hard to give a spoiler-free review of this particular book -- I'll start by saying that if you had problems with character voice and level of detailed exposition in the last one, you will most definitely not enjoy this one, as it is more of the same, but even more so as we the readers are even more comfortable with El's voice and the lore of the school gets deeper. I personally love El's first-person narration and Novik's exposition style, but not everyone does. Orion is also . . . not really absent, per se, for much of the book, but . . . . not entirely himself either. There are reasons for that and it's a deliberate choice, but it can be frustrating at times. When you finally get his POV from his own mouth, way down the line, he talks more than he's ever talked up to that point in both books combined.

I continue to love El, love the school (which is a character in its own right), the side characters are fleshed out and expanded more, and Orion and El's relationship is actually SUPER realistic for older teenagers in intense circumstances (I mean besides the obviously-unrealistic monster-fighting parts!). The tension builds until the very end, and it was a page-turner for me. Can't wait till the next one!

I love how this book recontextualizes the "hard facts" that the main character, El, took advantage of in the first book and uses them to subvert expectations. I absolutely cannot wait until the last book. Everything Naomi Novik writes is gold.

4.5/5 stars

While I enjoyed A Deadly Education well enough (to read the sequel at least), I wasn't as enthralled with it as I was hoping I would be. I'm a fan of the author's other works, the premise sounded great, but there was something about it that just wasn't keeping my interest. I think it may have been the crazy amount of info dumps the author included, a complaint I have heard countless people make.

While there are definitely still info dumps in The Last Graduate (one of the reasons I had to dock the book half a star) the action in this book blew me away. While I really like the characters, I'm more of a plot-driven book fan and the story just kept me hooked. Also, that last chapter is one of my favorite final chapters that I think I've ever read. I felt like I had run a marathon after it was over and I had a book hangover for days.

On the negative side: In addition to the info dumps, I also have to dock the book a bit because the author sometimes includes characterizations of and comments about non-American/European characters that I found pretty cringey. It's really not the most surprising thing in the world that a person born in Asia can speak fluent English, and yet the author felt the need to have her characters note their shock at such a thing on multiple occasions. I know there were issues in book one where there was a certain amount of tonedeafness in terms of the portrayal of non-American/European cultures and languages, and while I don't think book two was nearly as bad, sadly I feel like some of those problems did still persist.

Thanks to NetGalley and Del Rey Books for the advanced copy.

The TLDR version: This book is awesome, Naomi Novik is awesome, El is awesome, and I want one of my friends to read this book *RIGHT NOW* so I can talk to someone about it properly.

Long form review: Bear with me. I’m going somewhere with this.

The Paladin class is probably the trickiest of the classic tabletop RPG classes to play *right*. Setting aside details of stuff like armor class and weapon proficiencies and skill points, the heart of the class is that a character’s powers are directly tied to them living according to a strict personal code. Act against your code, and you lose your powers.

Lazy players will treat that code as just another class requirement, and make sure their character’s actions fit a strict reading of that code. Boring players make the code the central thing about their character, and the result is a kind of annoying religious zealot. The really interesting players also make the code the central thing about their character, but they make it a point of growth and internal conflict.

El is probably the best example of the Paladin character I’ve ever seen.

To quote *Into the Wood*, “‘Nice’ is different than ‘good.’” El is not nice. She is sarcastic, judgmental, self-righteous, and takes rudeness to places never before seen. But she is also, loathe as she is to admit it, her mother’s daughter, and that central conflict is what makes both *A Deadly Education* and *The Last Graduate* so freaking compelling. It’s not about the anti-Hogwarts nature of the Scholomance or fighting dangerous maleficarium or whatever cool spells El can pull off (though all that stuff is, admittedly, pretty great). What makes these books so compelling is seeing El trying to convince herself that she’s living according to the Scholomance’s selfish “every wizard for themselves” rules while being completely unable to actually do so.

I promised no spoilers, and I’m going to stick to that, but we saw this conflict play out pretty well in *A Deadly Education*. Her relationships with Aadhya and Liu and Orion. Her realization that she wasn’t actually playing some kind of clever long game so much as unconsciously procrastinating what her “plan” required her to do. Her determination to survive clashing with her refusal to let others die if she could prevent it. Her longing for the safety of an enclave and inability to accept the fundamental injustice of their existence. All of that carries on in this book, taken to the next level.

I strongly suggest not starting the last quarter or so of the book unless you have the time to finish it. The entire book was great, but that last portion building up to the climax was pretty much impossible to put down (the overall shape of the plot structure is pretty similar to *A Deadly Education,* actually). Those who have read aDE can guess what the climactic event is centered around. This book doesn’t end on a cliffhanger in the traditional sense, but (like aDE) holy hell is there a sequel hook.

Naomi Novik is, I feel, much like El herself: a once-in-a-generation-talent with the power to rock the world on its foundations. Will she use that power for good or evil? If *Uprooted* and *Spinning Silver* are any guide, probably for good, but (again, like El) I could well see her going to the dark side under the right circumstance. I hope Naomi gets book 3 out soon so I can find out.

Thanks to Del Ray for the ARC. The book comes out on September 28.

Improves on the already-solid first entry in the series by virtue of expanding the world. In some ways, the quintessential "middle book," setting up a finale more than it resolves or even attempts much here, but it's executed with zeal and suggests a grander full story than the inaugural book initially indicated.

It’s been nearly two days since finishing THE LAST GRADUATE and I’m not remotely over this book. It’s a rare sequel that takes all of the things I loved from book 1 and seems to do them even better the second time around. THE LAST GRADUATE is filled with compelling characters, darkly hilarious, and a scathing look at how systems designed to save us can completely fail us instead.

El is one of my all-time favorite protagonists. Her narrative voice is biting but relatable as the person she can be the harshest toward is herself. El faces some big challenges about who she is and what matters to her, which made for a really compelling plot arc. Watching her grow over the course of THE LAST GRADUATE was so, so satisfying.

The development of the Scholomance as a setting and the expansion of the magic system in THE LAST GRADUATE were both such a delight to read. The world of the Scholomance mirrors the existing power structures in the real world in a way that allows for some excellent criticisms of the things privileged people can accept as “normal.” Novik expands the reader’s knowledge of what magic can do in ways that added so much to the reading experience. El’s views of how magic works are repeatedly challenged in this book, which helped flesh out the world in really interesting ways.

Perhaps the most enduring element of THE LAST GRADUATE in the days after finishing it is the ending. I am absolutely unequivocally not over the ending. This book held my heart in my hands and, true to the Scholomance itself, it was not kind to it. The best part is that I can’t even be mad about what happened since it was so true to the characters that I honestly can’t see things going any other way.

The Scholomance has become a new favorite series of mine. THE LAST GRADUATE was all I could’ve hoped for and more from a sequel. I can’t wait to discuss it with more readers when it comes out in September.