2021 Reading Challenge: a dark academia book

[baronessekat]

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The Scholomance - a "school" for wizards. Only there are no teachers there. Instead the school is magiked to provide all the education the students need. While they take "classes" it's basically complete independent study where the school provides the books/tests/projects and it is up to the students to keep up.

The thing about being a wizard is that there are things out there that like to eat the mana, or energy, of wizards, especially young ones who cannot defend themselves. These things are called Mals and they crawl out of dark places in the school and only the lucky,good or ruthless survive being attacked by them.

El, short for Galadriel, is a Junior at the Scholomance and is also the outsider. She has always been treated like she's going to snap and kill everyone. Even as a child other wizards were wary of her and she's just learned to live with it. But as her Junior year goes on, she finds she needs the help of others to survive and with luck... pass her classes to make it to Senior Year.

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I can see where others would like this book. And don't get me wrong, there were some great lines that I found myself sharing on FaceBook. But all in all, I kept having to force myself to sit down and actually read for more than 3 minutes at a time.

I find yet again that as I get older, the more I have less patience for whiny. emo teenagers in literature. I hate to say it but I think if there were made into a TV series (probably Netflix) I would watch the hell out of it. But as a book, I do not see myself remotely looking for the next book.



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