A Deadly Education
A Novel
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Uprooted and Spinning Silver comes the first book of the Scholomance trilogy, the story of an unwilling dark sorceress who is destined to rewrite the rules of magic.
FINALIST FOR THE LODESTAR AWARD • “The dark school of magic I’ve been waiting for.”—Katherine Arden, author of the Winternight Trilogy
I decided that Orion Lake needed to die after the second time he saved my life.
Everyone loves Orion Lake. Everyone else, that is. Far as I’m concerned, he can keep his flashy combat magic to himself. I’m not joining his pack of adoring fans.
I don’t need help surviving the Scholomance, even if they do. Forget the hordes of monsters and cursed artifacts, I’m probably the most dangerous thing in the place. Just give me a chance and I’ll level mountains and kill untold millions, make myself the dark queen of the world.
At least, that’s what the world expects. Most of the other students in here would be delighted if Orion killed me like one more evil thing that’s crawled out of the drains. Sometimes I think they want me to turn into the evil witch they assume I am. The school certainly does.
But the Scholomance isn’t getting what it wants from me. And neither is Orion Lake. I may not be anyone’s idea of the shining hero, but I’m going to make it out of this place alive, and I’m not going to slaughter thousands to do it, either.
Although I’m giving serious consideration to just one.
With flawless mastery, Naomi Novik creates a school bursting with magic like you’ve never seen before, and a heroine for the ages—a character so sharply realized and so richly nuanced that she will live on in hearts and minds for generations to come.
The magic of the Scholomance trilogy continues in The Last Graduate and The Golden Enclaves
“The can’t-miss fantasy of fall 2020, a brutal coming-of-power story steeped in the aesthetics of dark academia. . . . A Deadly Education will cement Naomi Novik’s place as one of the greatest and most versatile fantasy writers of our time.”—BookPage (starred review)
“A must-read . . . Novik puts a refreshingly dark, adult spin on the magical boarding school. . . . Readers will delight in the push-and-pull of El and Orion’s relationship, the fantastically detailed world, the clever magic system, and the matter-of-fact diversity of the student body.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
You think your high-school days were rough? At the Scholomance academy of magic, either you graduate or you die. The first book in Naomi Novik’s fantasy trilogy stars El, a tough, standoffish teen girl who also happens to be a sorceress with staggering, partially undiscovered superpowers. We enjoyed the bitingly funny El, especially when she directs her sarcasm at Orion Lake, a fellow student who often saves her from the monsters that make the school a death trap. Like Novik’s entertaining previous novels Uprooted and Spinning Silver, A Deadly Education features a kick-ass heroine who struts her stuff in the face of many supernatural dangers and refuses to be a damsel in distress. Can El survive this lethal school? As she gets to know the full extent of her abilities, a better question might be whether the school can survive her.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Novik (Spinning Silver) puts a refreshingly dark, adult spin on the magical boarding school setting of the spellbinding first fantasy in her Scholomance trilogy. The students of Scholomance, a boarding school for sorcerers, must weather survival-of-the-fittest trials, fighting off the Lovecraftian monsters known as maleficaria (or "mals") that routinely break in to eat students. Graduation is the greatest challenge of all, and requires the students to fight their way through the sea of mals clustered outside the building. Dark sorceress El (short for Galadriel) has a plan for how she'll make it through the gates alive next year: she'll learn to control her affinity for destruction, make allies by impressing other students with her abilities, and stockpile magical energy. But monster-slayer Orion Lake throws a wrench in the works. He keeps saving El before she can display her talents, and has killed so many lesser mals that the ones left are huge and hungry. El and Orion must strike up an alliance to save themselves and their schoolmates from monstrous destruction. Readers will delight in the push-and-pull of El and Orion's relationship, the fantastically detailed world, the clever magic system, and the matter-of-fact diversity of the student body. This is a must-read for fantasy fans.
Customer Reviews
4/5
It took a bit to get used to the writing style. The whole story is told stream-of-consciousness style from the point of view of a teenager. Loved the story though
A Deadly Education
Naomi Novik must have the best imagination in the world. This is a very good YA novel with a different twist for the characters. The first person voice is intense, different from her style in other novels but no less interesting.
A Deadly School of Magic
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik is a very different school of magic from Hogwarts. Children from magical families enter the school with a limited amount of belongings and do not leave until graduation. There are no letters from home or care packages. The school is filled with monsters, and students must learn quickly how to protect themselves or die. This engaging fantasy book is told for the perspective of a girl who is completely on her own and avoided by her fellow students due to an expectation that she will level mountains and become dark queen of the world. However, Orion Lake, a popular boy from the New York Enclave wants very much to be close to her. This was a very original tale about a dark school of magic called the Scholomance, and the lengths that students had to go to survive. This book has had some negative feedback due to descriptions which were perceived as racist, but I don’t think that this was intentional. If one read the passages fully with an open mind, the reference was an unfortunate choice of illustration, but there weren’t any other red flags in the book. I absolutely loved this story which was very unique and included the camaraderie of teens developing friendships, the first blush of young love, and teens working together to solve a problem. This was exceptionally well written and fascinating. Readers who enjoy YA Fantasy shouldn’t miss this book! I am voluntarily submitting this review after reading a complementary copy of this book thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Del Rey.