A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

Title: A Deadly Education
Series: The Scholomance #1
Author: Naomi Novik
Source/Format: Purchased; Paperback
More Details: Fantasy; Young Adult
Publisher/Publication Date: Del Rey Books; September 29, 2020 

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

Lesson One of the Scholomance: Learning has never been this deadly.

A Deadly Education is set at Scholomance, a school for the magically gifted where failure means certain death (for real) — until one girl, El, begins to unlock its many secrets. There are no teachers, no holidays, and no friendships, save strategic ones. Survival is more important than any letter grade, for the school won’t allow its students to leave until they graduate… or die! The rules are deceptively simple: Don’t walk the halls alone. And beware of the monsters who lurk everywhere. El is uniquely prepared for the school’s dangers. She may be without allies, but she possesses a dark power strong enough to level mountains and wipe out millions. It would be easy enough for El to defeat the monsters that prowl the school. The problem? Her powerful dark magic might also kill all the other students.

A Deadly Education has been out for a few years now. At the time when it was initially released, I wasn’t really looking to read any dark academia/fantasy (there was also a controversy because of a passage about dreadlocks; Novik apologized; and the edition I have is a later printing that doesn’t include the text in question). I recently decided to give it a try, since I have liked two of Novik’s novels before.

A Deadly Education’s synopsis and title tells you exactly what kind of story and characters you’re in for. It’s a slower kind of novel where the action is scattered and context is vital for understanding what’s going on. There was something of a social hierarchy and stiff competition between the students, particularly within the ranks of those in enclaves and those outside of them. And there were a few instances of good commentary about it. As for the action, when it did occur, there were some moments of pure horror with nightmarish imagery.

What I really enjoyed about the story was the complexity of the Scholomance as well as how detailed the magic was. It was a harder system, rather than the soft almost whimsical kind found in stories like Lud-in-the-Mist. In A Deadly Education, there were hard rules and clear consequences. As for the Scholomance, it was a complicated machine with a lot of moving parts, literally. On the surface, I wondered why anyone would want to go there, but, as the story explained, the school had a legitimate function in keeping the balance. It didn’t change the fact that it was a dangerous, isolated place full of all sorts of very hungry monsters, where being alone or with others determined whether you would survive or not. Or, at least, having a dependable group gives better odds. The way the actual education portions of the story were structured presented some interesting challenges too, to say the least, but I found the explanations (which were long at some points) pretty engaging regardless.

Galadriel (El) Higgins is grumpy, but her anger felt more like a knee-jerk defensive tactic rather than anything else. Her life has been what seemed like one nightmare after another, and with a dark prophecy hanging over her head, it didn’t make her time at the Scholomance any easier. I like the development her character went through in A Deadly Education, and it was satisfying to see the little changes as they occurred. Orion Lake was interesting. At first appearances, he’s overly strong and incredibly efficient at dispatching the monsters that also inhabited the school. But, he and El were more alike than I’d originally assumed, and the grudging friendship that developed between the two was very entertaining to read as it happened.

There was a host of secondary characters as well—Chloe, Liu, and Aadhya just to name a few. They, like everyone else, had their own motivations and methods for dealing with the challenges the Scholomance presented.

Overall, I had a lot of fun with A Deadly Education.