Loved it! Even if I ended this book in agony, I loved it just like I loved the first one. Can’t wait for the 3rd!

The most important part of this synopsis is this: The magic of the Scholomance trilogy will continue in 2022!
Run, don't walk to get your hands on The Last Graduate. Second books in a series are hard. You have to grow your characters without dismissing everything from book one and make sure they have adequate conflict and resolution to want to keep reading when book three comes.

Novik hits all those points and more in this sequel. El is such a captivating character and her growth during these literal life and death school days are compelling, interesting, and magical. I love the magic system Novik has built where magic comes with a price. You can pay it now or later. I love the way El's mind works and how she comes to new ideas and conclusions. She is a remarkable character and would still be even if she wasn't the most powerful one in the Scholomance.

In their last year at the Scholomance, El realizes that maybe the school wants more for it's students and maybe she has the power to help save more than herself or her team, but she can't do it alone. The stakes are high in this sequel and I literally can't see where the story is going to go from here, but I can tell you that I can't wait to see what happens.

The second best part of the synopsis is so good I can't write it better. "With keen insight and mordant humor, Novik reminds us that sometimes it is not enough to rewrite the rules—sometimes, you need to toss out the entire rulebook."

I really enjoyed this final book in the Scholomance trilogy. Though this genre is generally not one I read often, I really enjoyed the entire series, as there was so much more depth to these books than I expected. The characters were really well drawn out, and I felt like I was there with them. The pages kept turning and I just had to read one more chapter. I highly recommend this series.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

The concept behind this series has always been good and remains so (Hogwarts, except it’s trying to kill all the students!), but the plot hit a bit of a skid in the second installment in the series.

The unique and clever magical system and excellent setting make up for a lot, but when the whole story was building toward the gauntlet of graduation (including several hundred pages of trial and error in this book) and what we end up with is…well, you’ll have to read it and see, but it isn’t great.

Novik has always been far better with detail and concept than action, so I wasn’t expecting a flawlessly written, heart-pounding escape from the Scholomance. But I did expect a lot better than what we got, and the plot still has the same problem that it has always had (there is no real villain or greater enemy), and now has a new issue, which is that this is a magical school setting series that will presumably now need to take place somewhere other than the school.

What we got here is certainly enough to keep one reading, and El remains an excellent heroine, even though the relationship between she and Orion has gone from hilarious and sweet to obnoxious and cringey.

I’m hoping the plot will find its footing again in the third installment of the series, but we’re pretty far from where we need to be as of the conclusion of this book.

The first book in this series took me a bit of time to get into because the first person narrative of a character just filled with so much anger and isolation came off teenage angsty and I couldn't connect with it right away. But I think El has acquired quite a bit of self-awareness and it's become much more of this school group dealing with trauma (while still trying to avoid getting murdered on a consistent basis). The book does a much better job with having El understand the people around her, allowing the reader to connect with these other characters as well, while still maintaining her personality and how she interacts with those people outwardly. I really connected with this book on a strong emotional level, I cried several times, both of happiness and sadness. The book does such a good job of the brutal math calculation of life and how much suffering and anger that generates for El, and how much it drowns and wastes and shames any skills that aren't fighting for survival, and what the loss of that is.

I think the last part of the book is going to overshadow most of the discussion regarding this book, which is a shame. I had a lot of questions going into this book of where the series is going to go from here, none of which are getting answered other than, there better be another book coming.

I ended up borrowing the finished copy of the audiobook from my library for The Last Graduate. I DNF'd this book at 40%. It felt identical to the first book, which I didn't really love. So, I don't feel the need to continue the story if it's just going to be a copy of the first book with different classes and similar fights with the demon things.

I have so many thoughts about this book! Some good and some not so good. Where to begin???

This is the second novel I’ve read by Naomi Novik, the first being A Deadly Education and I am ready to admit that I am not a fan of her writing style. I know! I know! Ms. Novik has a huge following and I hope I’m not shunned for this opinion. It is just a personal preference. There is just too much explanation in the first half of this book (and it was the same way in A Deadly Education). The second half of The Last Graduate is better than the first half and that is why I gave it four stars, although it probably really deserves a 3.5.

The Last Graduate picks up immediately after the ending of A Deadly Education. When I completed that first book I was invested in the story. I cared about El and the few friends she had made. I was ready to see how their senior year went and to see who survives the massacre that is graduation. Unfortunately, this novel began slowly and my interest declined. Why do these chapters have to be so long? I enjoyed getting to know El’s friends better and my favorites of course are Aadhya, Liu, and even Chloe. Their character development was much appreciated. Orion has less page time here, but the magnetic draw between him and El is pretty intense. El’s character development was great toward the middle of the book and I enjoyed seeing her become the leader she is meant to be. This book took me three weeks to read, which is a long time for me. I forced myself to pick up the book for the first two weeks because it was so boring. Then right around 30% it picked up and it only took me a few days to finish it. When I read the end I will be honest I was not thrilled that it ended on a cliffhanger. I really don’t want to read another one of these stories. But I will because I need to know how this all ends. I will schlep through another tortuous beginning because I know that the ending will be worth it. Ms. Novik does endings very well.

The Good
The ending - Wow! I was sort of expecting it, but when it happened I was still shocked!
Perseverance - I LOVED how the characters came together in the end and worked as a team. That was amazing!
Character Development - Characters like Aadhya, Liu, Chloe, and Orion are more fleshed out.

The Not So Good
Exposition - It’s too much. Pages of internal dialogue about random things that spiral into more random thoughts. I can appreciate a good backstory, but this was just a mess. There is no way I could ever remember all the info dump that happens throughout the ENTIRE novel.
So many characters - It was hard to keep track of who was who and what Enclave they were in or who they were connected to.
Timing - This book drags so much. The first half is dull. The chapters are long. El just continues to ramble internally about everything.
Another book - Ugh. I really was ready to be done with this series. Please Ms. Novik, write an interesting beginning to book three and stop all the internal dialogue about random things. I cannot take much more.

This is no Hogwarts. As a lover of all things magical I expected more I guess. I hated the Scholomance and frankly still do. I didn’t jive with the “evil” school trying to kill its occupants and I feel the explanation of things was pretty convoluted. In all the years that this school has been in existence no graduates came out and told their parents how messed up it was inside?? I find it extremely hard to believe that the adults were so lazy and preoccupied that they wouldn’t have been trying to fix the system somehow from the outside. In what reality would parents just blindly send their children to an unsafe school and hope for the best? I mean they just stop general maintenance? These parents all suck!

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, and Naomi Novik for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Didn’t realize this would be as dark as it is. I was still a fan though! Super atmospheric and dark and moody!

Holy cliffhanger!

Finally, we are back in The Scholomance, a dark world full of monsters and magic that I honestly cannot get enough of. It’s their final year, and El, Orion and their friends must survive in order to graduate. But will they make it out alive?

I love the storytelling and how well Novik crafts the bits of world-building while simultaneously developing each character in a way that keeps you entertained. I went into this book hoping for more action and more romance, and this sequel definitely delivered! I just love El’s character so much!

Overall, I felt like the story exceeded my expectations, however there was a big part of the book where I felt it dragged on much too long, this is my only reason for giving 4-stars. I think it may just me, but I thought it was a little too lengthy in general and I wanted it to move faster, but that ending almost makes me think I should read it again, or I suppose I’ll just lose sleep while I wait anxiously for the next book.

I can’t reveal much more about the ending, but be prepared to be distressed!

Thank you to @DelReybooks for my advanced e-galley in exchange for an honest review!

2.5 stars. The second book in the Scholomance series didn’t pull me along as much as the first book, unfortunately. I found the amount of prose narrative to be way too much and it acted to pull me out of the action rather than make me feel a part of the story. Much of the story was long winded and repetitive, to the point that I found myself skimming and feeling a bit bored. And I HATED to feel this way because the first book was so incredibly fascinating! Overall, it’s very “meh” for a sequel and I’m hopeful that the final book will really bring the series back to a good place.

El has spent three years at the Scholomance just trying to stay alive. Now, she has allies and hope that she’ll graduate and make it out. But the school is pushing her, targeting her more. And the more it gives, the more determined she is to succeed, to get out and take the others with her.

El is a strong, sensitive, and sarcastic character. Even those who don’t like her are drawn to her. In a scary school full of maleficaria, El can hold her own and help those around her (whether she wants to or not). Wonderful story! Friendship, a bit of romance, and danger throughout it all. Read Deadly Education first. Cannot wait for the next!

Jennie: Janine, Sirius, and I reviewed the first book in the Scholomance series (originally slated as two books; now a trilogy). Sirius gave it a C- and said she wouldn’t be reading this sequel, but Janine and I, though we had some reservations, ended up liking A Deadly Education quite a bit – I gave it an A- and Janine a B+. I was really quite excited to pick this book up and even more excited to review it with Janine.

Janine: Thank you! My grade actually rose after that and I’ve read it multiple times (sometimes in its entirety, sometimes just parts of it). I also put it on my best of 2020 list.

Jennie: The Last Graduate begins with the same scene that A Deadly Education ended with. Our heroine, El, has survived the group attempt to fix the machine that cleanses the graduation hall, giving the year’s seniors a fighting chance at survival. She’s in the cafeteria for the induction of freshmen students, when one unexpectedly gives her a letter from her mother. El had not expected anything because her mother isn’t wealthy or connected, and bringing in letters for students at the Scholomance is a big deal since it reduces the weight allowance that freshmen have; they need every ounce to hope to survive the coming four years.

Anyway, the short letter ends with an ominous declaration: “Keep far away from Orion Lake.” Orion is El’s maybe-sort-of-almost boyfriend, who she spent the year of A Deadly Education getting to know (not without some setbacks; El’s default is sarcastic insults and Orion’s is wide-eyed cluelessness).

El doesn’t know what to make of her mother’s warning, but like any teenage girl being warned off of a teenage boy, she doesn’t like it.

Janine: I really liked the way El came to the decision that she would disregard her mother’s warning. Orion was the first person in the school to like and befriend her, and warning or no warning, she wasn’t going to turn her back on that. I came up with more than one theory for what was behind the warning, but when the reason was finally revealed, it was surprising, not anything I guessed at, and yet it felt inevitable, too. That was masterfully done.

Jennie: The next day, the first of the school term, there’s more not to like (El’s personality and the nature of the Scholomance often conspire to bring about less-than-ideal circumstances). El finds herself assigned to an isolated classroom with a pack of freshmen.

Janine: Another thing I really liked was El’s interactions with the students she starts thinking of as her freshmen. At first, she’s determined not to watch out for them—she reasons that if they don’t learn to do that for themselves, they won’t last a day—and then she ends up playing the white knight after all, but she’s grouchy over it. That was so loveable and so El. She personifies the reluctant hero.

Jennie: Agreed – she’s lovable and also fascinating because we know she has this capacity for darkness but she’s also a better person than many of her classmates (to be fair, the nature of their world and the Scholomance seems to toughen up the young wizards early on).

Later, El realizes that the mal attacks she must fend off in class are pretty much the *only* mal attacks in the school, which is unutterably bizarre and inexplicable. It is also frustrating to Orion, who is almost manic in his mal-fighting inclinations, and who draws mana – essentially, wizard energy – from killing mals.

Janine: El, Aahdya, and Liu conclude that the school is intent on pushing El into the malificer “track” to gain mana from the students she’ll kill (the school needs mana to run on). To get the mana to combat the mals the school sends El’s way, they invite New York enclaver Chloe Rasmussen to join their alliance.

Jennie: The plot of The Last Graduate felt a bit episodic to me, and not entirely cohesive, which makes a summary difficult (for me anyway). El is dealing with several problems, some of which are more life-threatening than others (most are at least a little life-threatening).

The New York Enclave continues to want El to join them, especially as it becomes clear to the entire school that El’s not just some random weirdo but a seriously powerful wizard. El has no intention of joining a powerful enclave, but that’s something she’s still coming to terms with after thinking for years that joining a powerful enclave was *all* she wanted.

Word comes from the outside (via the one survivor) that the Bangkok enclave has been wiped out.

Janine: I loved the minor but crucial thread about Sudarat, the surviving freshman. It was poignant. I got teary in one scene.

Jennie: The destruction of an entire enclave is an unusual occurrence – the whole point of enclaves is that they provide safety. Various factions inside the school begin to worry that a Wizard War may be going on in the outside world. This in turn leads to some of those factions thinking it would be better to take El out rather than let her join New York. So now El has humans that want to kill her along with the mals.

El herself is coming into her own understanding of what graduation means, what her plan is for surviving and helping her alliance survive, and how far she is willing to go to defeat the Scholomance once and for all.

Then there’s El’s relationship with Orion, which felt like it got short shrift early in the book, but took center stage later in the story. I missed him early on; I know The Last Graduate isn’t a romance but I really like Orion as a character (even if I occasionally share El’s exasperation with his quirks).

Janine: I missed Orion and El’s friends-to-sweethearts relationship in the first half too (it was magical in A Deadly Education), but there were some lovely shifts in their relationship later on in this book, and huge payoff for the romantic drought near its climax, both in the lull before the storm and in the very last scene, which…wow! I felt we were offered a deeper and closer look at Orion, too. I’ve always felt affection for him but by the end of this book he had developed into a fully-fledged (albeit quirky) romantic figure.

Jennie: The lack of focus on El/Orion early on did give some of El’s other relationships further room to develop. I particularly like the growth of Chloe, the New York enclaver who went from enemy to sort-of-frenemy to actual friend to El in the first book.

Janine: Eh. Not a Chloe fan here. She does her best but how privileged she is relative to El and El’s other friends still bugs me. If my theories about book three are correct, though, Chloe may play a crucial role there, so I can see why it was necessary.

Jennie: Also, El gets a familiar, a little mouse named Precious (the name is comically/ironically cutesy given that El is so…not the type to have a cutesily-named pet).

One thing that has confused me about the Scholomance is how often it seems to conspire in large and small ways to make the students’ lives even harder than they would otherwise be. Some of it is explained by the idea that a certain amount of sacrifice (in the form of students) is needed to protect the other students, specifically the Enclavers whose ancestors are responsible for creating the Scholomance. But sometimes it seems like the school is just sadistic for no real purpose – for instance, the food in the vending machines is generally very dodgy and borderline inedible. Another example is evidenced several times over the two books and described thusly:

Distances in the Scholomance are extremely flexible. They can be long, agonizingly long, or approaching the infinite, depending largely on how much you’d like them to be otherwise.

I suppose that could be another way the Scholomance puts certain kids at a disadvantage deliberately with the intention of generating fresh blood (literally). Or maybe it has something to do with the nature of the magic in this world, where it seems like intentions can have an effect on results, both good and bad. But often it comes off as capricious, and I wish I understood it better.

Janine: I read this very differently but I can see how it would be confusing.

Spoiler: Show

Jennie: The Last Graduate can be seen as a classic bridge book between the opener and closer of a trilogy – it advances the plot and characters (and El’s character really does come into her own in a lot of ways) and sets up the finale (with another – even bigger! – cliffhanger than the first book delivered). As such, middle books can be the red-headed stepchildren of trilogies – no one’s favorite.

I actually did like this quite a bit. Still, there’s a lingering sense of…dissatisfaction is too strong a word. What it comes down to is that I love the characters and the writing but I was slightly tepid on the plot.

Janine: Same here.

Jennie: A sequence in which El leads other seniors on a mock obstacle course (which can, of course, still kill them) set up in the gym and meant to prepare them for graduation felt like it took up a *lot* of the book. It wasn’t boring, but I felt like it could have been shorter.

Janine: I have noticed that in a few of Novik’s books (most notably in Uprooted)—she can draw out her action sections too long. The nature of the obstacle course kept that from being too bad here, though. I actually geeked out on the cool visuals of the gym, and some of the training action (especially early on) was exciting.

Jennie: The book felt like it was divided mostly between “action” and “El figuring things out” and I think maybe it needed a little more of her interacting with other characters. I don’t know.

Janine: Yes, I agree with that. I ended up having three major issues.

The episodic nature of the plot, which you mentioned earlier, was my first issue. I’m much more likely to be riveted when there’s a powerful central thread that pulls me the whole way through.

Another issue I had was the expansion in scale. A Deadly Education was a personal story; it focused on El and a few others, on how she changes from outcast to embraced friend. Here the stage is wider; this book is largely about how El’s relationship with the entire school. That’s interesting, but for me, a story thread that is about the character’s heart is even more satisfying than one about a situation (however interesting a situation) that affects them and everyone around them. Not every reader feels that way, of course.

As an aside, it’s an easy prediction to make that book three will have an even larger scale—the entire world of wizards and witches—and I think it will have epic personal stakes too. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that somewhere in there the prophecy that’s been foreshadowed will have to be reckoned with. Because of that, and because of how The Last Graduate ends, I agree 100% that The Last Graduate is a bridge book.

Jennie: I’ll admit, I am excited to get out into the larger wizard world.

Janine: Me too. I think it’ll be amazing.

My third reason for liking this one less than A Deadly Education (although I did like it a lot) is that A Deadly Education is a feel-good story that ends on a euphoric note and this one isn’t.

Spoiler: Show

Caveats aside, this book had a ton going for it. It’s hard to talk about most of that without spoiling the book, but I loved El’s relationship with her homeroom of freshmen, El’s dreams for a future involving a spell from her golden stone sutras, little Sudarat, the unsettled question of where Orion would go after graduation and the way El handled that, a couple of awesome artifices, the shifts in El and Orion’s relationship and the terrific development of Orion’s character. There were lovely smaller scenes, too, such as one in the cafeteria involving an injured student.

I’m giving this a B+. Jennie, what’s your grade?

Jennie: I *loved* both the cafeteria scene with the injured student and El’s dream about what she wants to do when she graduates.

It’s another A- for me, maybe a bit below the A- I gave A Deadly Education. I am so excited for the final book, though.

I am very late in reviewing this novel! May Naomi Novik and publisher forgive me. Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Last Graduate is find our heroine (maybe if her dark prophecy is avoided) Galadriel in her senior year of the Scholomance. While she finds herself with some hard won allies and friends, it seems the school itself is out to get her....or could it have different plans?

It's difficult to talk about this novel because there are so many AMAZING details; battles, outrageous plans, heroism, and another cliff hanger ending that left me shrieking when I finished the final page. I do not want to spoil anything, so I will leave my review with this, Naomi Novik has once again created a world that feels both real and fantastical with actual consequences. I cannot wait for book three, it's going to be good!

Last spring I posted a rave review of A Deadly Education: Lesson One of the Scholomance by Naomi Novik, and The Last Graduate is the second in the Scholomance trilogy.

Novik's Scholomance series is set at a magical school with two routes out for its students: a grueling, punishing path to graduation and beyond or, just as likely, death. Danger and darkness lurk around every corner.

I looooooved the wonderful dark humor and unexpected details in A Deadly Education and the fantastic exchanges between El and Orion, and each of these elements is carried through in The Last Graduate.

El continues to be a fantastically grumpy, powerful, whip-smart, socially awkward, straightforward character I was obsessed with, and I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible.

Orion, the golden boy in El's class, irritatingly insisted on repeatedly saving her life and acting the annoying hero in book one. El, with her dark magic--more powerful than any of her classmates realize, which is just how El wanted it--feared she might accidentally take out Orion before she could master her skills if he kept hanging around. But in book two there's a grudging (on El's part) affection and connection between El and Orion that's lovely.

In this second book of the trilogy, El is determined to somehow help her classmates escape their deadly school despite the selfish, privilege-driven approach that's dictated life-and-death outcomes for generations.

El is torn: she could follow what feels like her destined path toward dark magic and destruction, or she could try to rewrite her future by envisioning something completely new. She hasn't exactly ingratiated herself to many people at school the past few years. She's been keeping her head down, snapping at ridiculous behavior when she can't resist, and actively cultivating her loner status in order to protect others from her shocking strength.

In The Last Graduate, self-reliant, gruff El lets a select few friends into her inner circle and lets down her guard in ways that felt poignant. El and Orion's significant, unique powers turn out to complement each other as perfectly as their personalities do. They're both once-in-a-generation wizards for different reasons, and if anyone can shift the Scholomance away from its centuries-old pattern of churning death and destruction--if anyone could dare to encourage the students to abandon cutthroat survival strategies and actually work together--well, it's these two and their unlikely band of allies.

A lot of page time was spent on logistics and on explaining why magical processes and machinations functioned the way they did--or why potential solutions were impossible. This slowed the pacing, but I felt less impatient about it than I did in book one, when Novik outlined in detail the workings of wizards' privileged enclaves and other magical systems. The young wizards hold the future of magic in their hands, in a sense, and their halting, experimental, frustrating, and often brilliant collective efforts made my heart soar.

I found myself trying to slow down and savor Novik's irresistible Scholomance world while reading The Last Graduate, and I'm so very glad there will be a third book in this series.

Novik also wrote the fantastic Spinning Silver and Uprooted, both of which appear on the Greedy Reading List Six Magical Fairy Tales Grown-Ups Will Love.

The dark humor in A Deadly Education and The Last Graduate reminded me of another book I also loved, Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots.

I received a prepublication digital edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group.

A delightful, exciting addition to the Scholomance series. I enjoyed the building of the narrative but still found the final fight scene to drag on a bit, but that's more personal choice. The totality of the book was well written and enjoyable. The third installment can't get here soon enough!

It is now senior year and El and Orion have successfully cleansed the Scholomance of the majority of the deadly mals, but can they survive graduation? Can they help their friends survive with them? There is more sorcery, romance and intrigue in this second book in the series which ends with a major cliffhanger.

<b>Synopsis:</b> Senior year is finally here which means it's time for El, Orion, and the other seniors at Scholomance to prepare for graduation - a deadly ritual that historically leaves only a few survivors. Instead of preparing for graduation by building enough mana to get through the graduation ceremony, poor El is spending all her time fighting off mals that seem to be focused entirely on her. It's clear the school is out to get her because she gets straddled with the worst class schedule, in the farthest classrooms, and is grouped with freshmen. How is El supposed to store up enough mana to graduate when she has to keep using it to fight off mals and save herself from becoming a delicious snack to all the mals?

<b>Review:</b> Usually second books in trilogies are the worst because they just act as a gap between the first and third books. The Last Graduate is not one of those, in fact, I loved it even more than the first book. How is that even possible? That rarely happens, in fact, I am having a hard time recalling another series where the second book was better than the first.

I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I just absolutely adore El. I have found her so relatable, even from the very beginning. She is introverted, sarcastic, and often pessimistic. You can actually see the growth between junior and senior year because the character that closes out the second book is not the same girl we met at the beginning of book one. She is so honest and raw and that makes her likable and relatable, and even though she has a prickly personality she finds friends that love her for who she is, even if she is in an inner battle with herself to not go malificer.

Novik has a gift to create vivid worlds, relatable characters, action-packed adventure, and gut-wrenching endings - wait what? Yes, you read that correctly! Seriously, what the actual f with that ending?! I'm pretty sure I just sat there staring at the screen for several minutes, slowly blinking, thinking - "wait, what just happened?"

<i>“I think everyone else felt as I did, secretly and irrationally, that if we could only succeed, if we could only destroy the whole place, we could save ourselves from ever having been in here.”</i>
― Naomi Novik, The Last Graduate

Overall I give this book 4.5 stars because the story is that fantastic, but don't just take my word for it, read the series for yourself.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Del Rey Books (Random House Publishing/Ballantine) for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A great sequel! I can’t wait to recommend this to my students. A perfect alternative for Harry Potter with a little more dark academia

At the Scholomance, El, Orion, and the other students are faced with their final year--and the looming specter of graduation, a deadly ritual that leaves few students alive in its wake. El is determined that her chosen group will survive, but it is a prospect that is looking harder by the day as the savagery of the school ramps up. Until El realizes that sometimes winning the game means throwing out all the rules . . .

I enjoyed this one as much as the first. Just like the last one, it leaves you wanting to devour the next book. I love El's relationship with Lake but the warning at the end of the first novel wasn't really explained in this one. It just lingered. I did struggle to get through this one but it wasn't the writing or the story I think I'm still having some issues with some of the world-building aspects. I just had a difficult time following what is actually going on sometimes. I'm still confused about the gym but overall it was a good read.

(2.5 stars, rounded up)

Galadriel AKA El returns in the second book in the Scholomance series and is preparing for her graduation and the deadly battle that will take place while trying to exit the school.

The first book in this series was a study in fascinating world-building, but this second novel in the series slows the interest. With the world already established, the book lacks the hook that keeps you reading. There's a lot of politicking and trying to establish connections outside the school amongst the seniors.

El has a relationship with Orion Lake, the hero of her class. Her relationship with Orion is a side story that isn't well developed, making the reader question why they are together in the first place.

While the book is a slog, the chapters leading to the finale are quite exciting. I wish more of the momentum from the final chapters ran through the entire novel.

This is the third Naomi Novik book I've read, and I think "three strikes and you're out" applies here.

Recommended only if you loved the first book in the series.