Incredible book. I didn't think it was possible to improve upon A Deadly Education, but The Last Graduate managed to do it. It should be a crime to leave us with that ending and then make us wait a year!

I feel like some chunks of the book could be edited out completely and not change anything. I understand that some parts are for making the world feel real, and lived in but in some cases it felt like pointless ramblings.



Despite its flaws, it was really enjoyable to read. I love the characters, they definitely grow on you.

This book is so interesting. The concept of a school that is trying to teach its students magic (without any teachers, so they're all self-taught) while also low-key trying to kill them was SUCH a unique concept. I absolutely love this world building, and now that I understood the magic system more, it was even more intriguing. I love watching El become friends with a whole group of people and all of them becoming a found family while trying to survive their school. Also, El and Orion have my whole heart. I can't wait for book three!

The concept of the Scholomance as a living school with the purpose of guarding teenaged wizards is fascinating. We learn a little more about the school itself in this installment. The story makes some unexpected shifts, with the characters growing and learning and developing in surprising ways. There are lots of new characters to create new revelations and twists. It's fun to see El interacting with so many of the other kids: her new close friends, but also the other students of various ages and feelings toward her, now that she's no longer a nobody. There is a lot of self-reflection in the book, and contemplation about the Scholomance itself, as well as admirable teamwork among many students. I am fully invested in the futures of the school itself, all of the world's magic folk, and the students in particular.

Something unique for me about this series is that I really think the writing is not very good, and yet I don’t want to give up on the story. The plot as a whole is very interesting, and keeps me reading, but this series honestly falls into the category for me of poor execution of an excellent idea. Somehow, despite the fact that I normally will have an overall negative reaction to such books and won’t continue the series, this one I am continuing. So I guess it’s more of “great idea, meh execution” than “poor” execution.

El, the main character, is of course still the same YA female lead from all the other books written in the past 10-20 years, so those readers who like all the other YA leads will like her. She’s mean to people, especially boys, she IsN’t LiKe OtHeR gIrLs, and she’s good at fighting. She ticks all the cookie-cutter-YA-lead boxes.

In case it isn’t obvious, I personally dislike El. She's always annoyed or angry; it's excessive and unpleasant. I've read other books of grumpy characters who end up helping other characters, and they can be written really well where you like the character and believe they are that grumpy but also believe their willingness and reasons for helping others when they do. El is not written that well. Her motivations often don't make sense, the same with her reasoning. I also don’t particularly like any of the other characters. Most of them feel sort of bland and only mildly interesting, as well as being not likeable. Despite that, somehow I really care about what happens to them. I want to know their story. The one character that I almost like is Orion. Even he feels flat and inconsistent, though, and I'd want so much more from him and of him, but we don't get to know him much until a brief part toward the end of this book. His relationship with El is baffling, given that she treats him terribly 98% of the time; he has no real reason to like her beyond his initial fascination with her for not fawning over him like everyone else.

The writing as a whole in this book and the first one leave a lot to be desired, and a lot to be guessed at. The author will write something as if it's supposed to be obvious and easily inferred, without explicitly sharing with the reader what the explanation is, and I often have no idea what I'm supposed to understand because it wasn’t explained. There are also a lot of hugely long-winded tangents taken right in the middle of some action or conversation, breaking the immersion and causing the reader to struggle to reenter the scene that was interrupted for multiple paragraphs of backstory. In addition to the abundance of vague/ lacking explanations, there are conversely several times when events are described in a superfluously repetitive fashion, or descriptions unnecessarily drawn out just to fill in space on the page; these detract from the story, rather than adding anything useful to it, and should really be edited down. So the narration vacillates between being too vague and being overly descriptive. It’s just not well-written, in my opinion.

Still, with those points bothering me, I find the overall story to be compelling enough to give this 4 stars, and to keep me coming back for more. Even though I think the writing needs to be improved by a lot, I will be back for The Golden Enclaves.

I am devastated. This second book in The Scholomance trilogy is so very terribly good.

The Scholomance is as horrifying a place as it is fascinating, full of some of the most inventive creatures and magics I've ever read. Allegories abound as we see how morality, socioeconomic status, popularity and the will to survive all churn into this anxiety-inducing nightmare. Whereas A Deadly Education laid the foundation for this world, The Last Graduate expands the scope in a way that is both organic and engaging.

El is such a funny, dry, sarcastic heroine. This book sees her making the journey toward a fuller life (Friends! Love! A future with purpose!), as well as increasing mastery over her own powers. I love that we now see her starting to trust others enough to lean on them. And I love that she continues to buck expectation, refusing to be the world’s darkest wizard in the making, and instead finds ways to work big magic to big advantage for the good of the masses.

I admit that I got dragged down a few times by lengthier exposition, but the world and its politics are so complex, and there sometimes isn’t another way to describe those concepts without, well, describing them. I imagine a lot of this is necessary set-up for book 3, as well. Overall, Naomi’s writing some of my favorite, especially in the voice of a younger character. The run-on sentences of epic proportions give me LIFE! It makes the actual reading feel so natural, the narration so authentic to the main character’s speech patterns, and just flat-out fun. Nothing overly stuffy here. And the insults El slings, primarily at Orion, are as memorable as they are creative.

But the ending. Oh, that cliffhanger is… well, in a word, heartbreaking. There’s a real sense of loss at this point, having spent two books with these characters and having absolutely zero guarantees about how anything is going to work itself out again. But that’s also how I know that this series is truly exceptional, because I care. And because I care, it’s going to be a rather miserable wait for the next book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for access to a DRC.

Picking up where A Deadly Education left off, The Last Graduate follows our characters through a stressful senior year of high school. The cast must stick together if they have any hope of escaping the Schoolomance alive.

The second book builds on what was established in the first book. The cast continues to bond with each other. El's peers finally begin to recognize and rely on her. However, as El grows stronger and more important, Orion becomes obsolete and sidelined. The story does a good job of showing the toughness of surviving in the school and the bonds between the cast. Strangely enough, I feel like El and Orion's relationship stagnated in this book.

There are plenty of ups and downs to keep the plot moving to the finale. The book ends on a cliffhanger and you will be dying to read the next installment!

Everyone raves about the Scholomance books. The first book in the sequence, A Deadly Education, gave us an entirely new concept – a magic school with no teachers (the school itself is magic) which is trying to kill its students. In order to graduate, a student has to make good alliances, be really lucky, or exceptionally talented. El (Galadriel) is supremely talented but with great potential for dark magic and death. In the first book she was an outsider with not much chance of graduating but she acquired friends, and even a love interest in Orion Lake, a young man with a hero complex, and a penchant for killing the monsters that are trying to kill the students. In this book, graduation is approaching and El has a plan to get all the graduating class through without casualties (which is unheard of). Pretty soon that stretches to encompass the whole school. There is a bit of a cliffhanger ending (which I’m not fond of).but the third book, The Golden Enclaves, is due in September 2022 and is already available to pre-order. I thoroughly enjoyed the first book, but a fair amount of the second rehashed similar themes, at least for the first half. It started to get more interesting when El’s plan kicked in.

The first person narrative style didn't work for me - I need more structure and dialog than this book provided.

The characters were interesting, as was the world and context.

FUCK I LOVE THIS SERIES SO MUCH AND THAT CLIFFHANGER WAS SO BRUTAL

I’m suffering y’all. I always forget how much I like El until I’m faced with her stream of consciousness type narration, and then I love her all over again. This book slaps and I absolutely cannot wait to read the last book in this trilogy, I cannot emphasize how much I love and enjoy it. I miss El so much!

Following El, right where we left in the previous book, A Deadly Education, in the magic shool. Her second and final year.

Naomi Novik, creates, yet again, a spectacular and rich atmosphere with her writing. Detailed and addictive.

El Is a very strong character and easy to love.

This book was a great book, after the fist one you didn't think it would get better, but belive me Novik didn't disappoint.

This book should be on your to-read list if you like Magical, YA Fantasy books.

Wow! Consider my jaw dropped. If you are looking at books in the fantasy genre then this is it for you. This is the second book in the trilogy and if you haven't started it yet, it is time to join this bandwagon already!

I loved Naomi Novik's style of writing. The characters and their storyline is amazing. It has good themes, friendships and romantic interests making it an engrossing read. And those cliffhangers! Definitely recommend!

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for sharing the digital copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

Preliminary 5-star review. Will post a full review and adjust the rating accordingly after I finish the book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an e-ARC copy of this book, in exchange for this honest review.

This series was described to me by a coworker as a dark wild version of Hunger Games plus Harry Potter. i agree with this assessment.

This is a fantasy dystopia with lots of sci-fi elements. i say fantasy because of the magic and all the made up words and mythology one has to learn for the world they are in. Novik always makes it very easy to understand the world she has created. the context clues she gives are just part of the story. you do not even realize you are learning rules and terms for a whole new world. It is a seamless. I say sci-fi because they use a LOT of science and mechanical and technological things in order to make their magic work in this world. i say dystopia because it is set in our everyday modern world but with a twist - magic. Also dystopia because the world is kinda ending and a HUGE change (revolution!) is about to happen in the way the world is governed.

I loved this book. It was a sequel that thankfully was already out when i read the first one. this does need to be read after the first one. it is like one continuous story just broken up into volumes by the different novels. i thought i was requesting the 3rd book. i was very excited. i am sad. hopefully the third book will be available on netgalley soon!

Scholomance #1 ended with a hell of a plot twist as the VERY LAST SENTENCE, and Novik keeps up the streak in this second book. And now I'm glad I'm at the front of my library's hold list, because I HAVE to know how this ends. And I am VERY glad, on checking, that this is a trilogy, and there's been no announcement of that changing, because I can not HANDLE Novik doing this to me again.

This book is all about managing survivor's guilt. The whole plot is really about making the world a better place for those who come after us. And a lot more directly than a generational thing. El and her classmates must find a way to make the Scholomance safe PERMANENTLY, or else their lowerclassmen, their siblings, and eventually their children will also be die in the droves they themselves have.

Add on to this the standard YA romance. Oddly, this book manages to put the romance both on the backburner, but make it a pretty central issue. El has received a VERY VAGUE warning about her beau, Orion, and so she puts a lot of her mental energy into forming an alliance with two girl friends. And all three of them get along so well! Nothing toxic, no love triangles, just friends working together to save thousands of magic youngsters.

Special mention goes to El's new familiar, a mouse named Precious. Sassy little thing, unerring judgement. I hope she keeps showing in book 3!

Advanced review copy provided by the publisher.

"The Last Graduate" is the second book in the Scholomance series by Naomi Novik.
I must admit that I started this book with very low expectations, due to the fact I didn't particularly like the first book, "A deadly education", and rated it 1 and a half/2 stars.
But this book exceeded my expectations so I gave it 3 stars.
In this second novel, we follow Galadriel, aka El, in her last year in Scholomance and into the preparations for graduation, which will not be as easy as everyone has thought.
I liked the writing style that has changed from the previous book, making this second one much more interesting and fast-paced. However, I wouldn't say that it is exactly a page-turner, in fact, I read it in 17 days, which is a lot for my standards.
I found the main character but in general, the characters, much more relatable and less annoying, which helped me dive into the book a lot faster.
There were some plot twists, some predictable from the beginning but others that shocked me.
I think I'll definitely read the next book if there will be one.

What a delightful ride! Readers who fell in love with A Deadly Education won't be able to put The Last Graduate down. Just as engaging and fascinating as the first in the series; Novik's world building and character development suck you in. She, of course, leaves us with another cliffhanger as we eagerly await the next in The Scholomance series

Alright, so I received a copy of The Last Graduate from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

And thank you.

But if you’re thinking “this book has been out for over a year, how and why did you get an arc book”. How? Because they still had it on netgalley. Why? Because I have constant 24 hours a day headaches and I thought this was the third book, the Golden Enclaves, and I wanted to read it as soon as possible.

So, that gives my thoughts away rather quickly, but let’s get into a little more detail about why I absolutely love these books and give this one 5 stars. El has to be one of my favorite angry characters. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good angry character who just burns the world to the ground, but I love how much El feels empathy with everyone around her. While people all around her instinctively fear her because of her ability to do great evil, and her anger and personality will turn them even more away, her actual personality is one that ultimately leads them all to look for what’s best for everyone instead of everyone looking out for themselves, and then their fellow enclave mates.

And while I wish she wasn’t tied to Orien; I understand why their love interests. Not only are their powers opposed to each other, but it’s also slowly revealed that their personalities are, well, as close as they can be without Orien being a malificier at least.

The school itself also gets more personality, which I love because it already had so much, to begin with, which… well, saying anything more would be a spoiler.

Which speaking of spoilers. That cliffhanger reminded me why I need the third book now!!!!

Thankfully it is coming out soonish.

But really, I’m finding myself becoming truly involved not just in magical systems and worlds when reading, but in characters, and the characters here on point. I loved not just El, but how every character played off of her, and how you could understand why they were acting the way they were.

This was a wonderful book, and I can’t gush about it enough. It’s one of those books in a trilogy that takes an already great premise and makes it even better. I truly am looking forward to the third book!

So I got the first on of these books in a book sub and loved it as El was so out spoken that I loved her. This books has middle book issues but still good as it was building up to the last book.

The ending of this book killed me and I did scream at it as I was fuming

The Last Graduate takes you back to the Scholomance and keeps you on the edge of your seat for another action packed novel. Just when El thought school couldn't get any more deadly, she enters her final year. El, Orion, and their friends must work harder than they ever have in order to escape during graduation - a ritual that leaves more dead than graduated. Things seem to be going worse than expected and it is left to El and her friends to fix things in a way that saves not only their own lives but the lives of the entire school.

I could not put this book down. I wish I could reread it again for the first time. The characters are witty, hilarious, and honest. Their final year is full of sweet moments and moments so gruesome, I'll be thinking of them for a long time. A perfect read for fantasy fans, leigh bardugo fans, and harry potter fans alike.

3.5/3.75 Stars

I was not aware this would be a trilogy and that ending left me reeling! Scholomance has excellent world-building and very well-thought-out lore. There were moments when it was overwhelming especially when we're already 75% into the story and we're still going a boat-load of info dump but it did make sense with the story and the world. El isn't your typical fan favorite YA heroine and for that, I appreciated her. I loved the twists and turns and relational developments El has made not just with Orion. I am torn about Orion and El's relationship. On the one hand, I am glad it didn't take center stage in her story, but I wish we could have seen more of its development happen on the page. I also wish there was more research done on the different cultures included in the story. I can see why readers might have issues with it. I thoroughly enjoyed the last quarter of the book. It was way more action-packed than the beginning of the story but it made up for it. And I am so invested in this story and where it is going. I can't wait for the last book and see how it all ends.