I literally did not sleep and finished this book in one single sitting as i did with the first two books lmfao i do not regret my choices ( )

This was a decent enough conclusion to the trilogy, but not as tight as the earlier books. Things bogged down in the middle and the ending was just a little too rosy. ( )

I must admit, I usually find books over 300 pages to be a bit daunting, often feeling like a slow march to the finish. There were definitely moments in this 400+ page book when I needed to take a break and gather my focus, but every time, the story's compelling nature eventually drew me back in. I HAD to find out what happened!

The narrative was peppered with fast-paced, thrilling, and deeply emotional scenes that made the journey worthwhile. Particularly satisfying were the revelations that tied up the mysteries introduced in the first book, offering a sense of closure that was immensely gratifying.

By the end, I found myself shedding a few tears during an especially poignant moment. The book, overall, was enchanting. El, the protagonist, is a richly complex character who initially challenged my empathy but ultimately won my heart in the end. ( )

A good ending to the series that I couldn’t put down. I’m glad I just found this series this year and so didn’t have to wait to finish it. This book picks up just where the previous one ended and wrapped up everything nicely. I love to see a new series following El in the rest of her life. It make a good television series. ( )

This isn't your childhood Harry Potter.

"I didn’t want to get up and go on in the world, agreeing that it was in any way acceptable for the world to keep going itself."

This is not a comfortable read. A friend noted that I had shown a lot of enthusiasm for this series, and it's true, I have. Novik blends intense emotion with unremitting danger, and the combination makes for an intoxicating, immersive read. Book three in the series is no different.

"But they’d loved Orion only in exactly the same way they’d hated me. Neither one of us were ever people to them. He just made himself useful, and I refused to."

But not always a fun one, as El is processing a lot of difficult emotions, and of the trilogy, this one will cut the deepest. Also of the three, this one felt like it had the most filler material. My thoughts on this are subject to change, as I discuss further with my buddies and as I go through a second, more leisurely read.

From here on out, there will be general/thematic spoilers. You have been warned.


I'll be honest--big surprise, I know--there's a lot of filler here. I can't even tell you what all of it is about, but much is about pocket dimensions. Some of it is how the Scholomance is hidden. Another chunk is El running her personal gerbil wheel of emotions and events relating to Orion. I think the repetitiveness around that is part of what provides the emotional intensity and frustration of the book. El's always been single-minded--they all have, to survive Scholomance--so although this should probably be no surprise to the reader, it does make for a more jarring experience witnessing her being unable and unwilling to fit into the outside world.

On the positive side, Novik has done something amazing, and woven LeGuin's Omelas story into her book. I'm still a little stunned at how well it was accomplished.

It's also--and this is really fascinating--one of the most female centric books I've read in a long time, notwithstanding Orion's role (which still manages to be more thoughtful than the gender-traditional [b:Senlin Ascends|35271523|Senlin Ascends (The Books of Babel, #1)|Josiah Bancroft|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1502224161l/35271523._SX50_.jpg|24467682]). Male characters are quite adjacent. Really quite impressive.

On the meta level, Novik is kick-ass. No snark here. I don't want to spoil anything, but she has beautifully looped in the themes we have been reading all along in unexpected but completely story-congruent ways. It makes me a little crazy when authors think they are being clever by pulling in an element that hasn't been hinted at or developed within the story. That is not the case here. It's the reading equivalent of looking at the picture of the young woman and suddenly seeing a wrinkled old one with a stole. It's brilliant and wrenching.

Without becoming overly preachy, although I felt that it was repetitive enough to venture into 'filler,' the themes of who we become and choices, and choices we make as a community and survival come to fruition here. This is where the Omelas connection comes in, and this is where people note things like climate change and fossil fuels. Truly remarkable.


Thankfully, this time there's no cliffhanger ending.

Four golden stars.

thanks to Jennifer, Nataliya, Samuel for the buddy read! And Emily and Emma for all the discussion! ( )

Galadriel Higgins aka El, a tertiary-order entity, has just landed in her home commune in Wales after Orian Lake shoved her out of the Scholomance. Contrary to El's great-grandmother's prophecy of doom and destruction, she did not kill enclavers, but saved them with Orian Lake and their allies. Their graduation plan worked, so they were able to save every student and send the Scholomance into the void, hopefully making the world safe for wizards and the various enclaves in the world. However, someone or something is now attaching enclaves. El is asked to come to the London enclave to kill a maw-mouth that has gotten in and is attacking the wizards there. The book continues with El finding out that she can kill maw-mouths fairly easily, in fact they seem to run from her, and her discovering the reason that enclaves are becoming unstable and crumbling. This book had several descriptions that were so fanciful that I was unable to visualize the setting and/or action. ( )

A good conclusion to the series. ( )

What a great conclusion to this trilogy. I will definitely miss El, and miss this world-building as well! As always, Novik's magic systems make me deeply envious, and I can't wait to see what she's got coming next! ( )

A decent ending to the trilogy but not quite as good as the first two books. While they were neatly confined between the walls of Scholomance, this one took on the entire world. And that gave it more of a rushed feeling, lacking the depth of the first two. And quite honestly, I wasn't happy that not everyone got what they deserved to have coming to them. Overall, the trilogy was good, but I would have liked this final volume to have the same scale as the first two or have been expanded to make this a quartology. ( )

Waaaaaaaaaa, vet ikke hva jeg føler nå. Alt ga mening, etter plot twist etter plot twist… ingen plot holes. Veldig bra skrevet, og passer veldig godt som siste bok i serien. ( )

Kind of like the last book(s) of Harry Potter, most of the story in this third book takes place outside of the school.

If you take a glimpse at the chapter titles, you can see how El trots around the world to do what she needs to do.
In this sense, the third book is more formulaic than the first two in the series, with less deviation from expectations.

Ending spoilers: Kind of like Spinning Silver and Uprooted, Novik gives us a strong, yet poignant ending. It's not a sad ending, but it's also not a rainbow and puppy-dogs, happily-ever-after ending either.
It teaches people that your happy ending might not look the way you originally imagined, but it is also not that bad either. ( )

A good read, but I'm not entirely sure how successful I found the choice to focus the last book of the trilogy on such a wider scope of the whole magical world when the first two were firmly in the grounds of the school. There was a lot more world building and exposition than I'd normally expect in a planned final entry in a series. ( )

This one lost me.
I don't know if I wasn't in the right mood for it, but I just didn't like the premise of the trilogy to begin with. El, the protagonist, is thoroughly unlikeable and stayed that way for me the entire time. The wizard world building is unique and the maw-mouth is a fun monster to read about, but I felt like at least 800 of the 1100 pages of the 3 books were El explaining how everything works. The entire thing felt like a lecture monologue and I barely knew the other characters and had a hard time getting a sense of space or understanding of the moment to moment happenings. Especially in the third book where they go to a dozen different locations and I couldn't really keep up, but I think by that point I'd just checked out. Didn't like a single character.

That may be on me, and I've really enjoyed Novik's other books, but I was dreading picking this one up and was relieved to be finished. I liked how it ended, but still had way too many questions and there's so much information thrown at me that a lot of the time I was just zoning out. Nowhere near Uprooted (one of my favorites). ( )

In this finale to the Scholomance trilogy we learn what happens after El, Orion, and her colleagues manage to get everyone out of the Scholomance. Well, almost everyone, Orion stayed behind which makes El determined to find a way back in to get him.

There are some problems to overcome first. Something is killing enclaves, and the various enclaves are on the brink of war. Looking for help uncovers all sorts of secrets. Secrets that could bring the whole system of enclaves tumbling down.

El's plans for the escape from the Scholomance did manage to cut the number of mals in half but didn't do anything for the most awful of all the mals. The maw-mouth doesn't just kill wizards. It keeps them alive inside it in such a way that they can't die. And killing them has been a task that requires a large group of adult wizards working together. At least it did until El.

This was an excellent conclusion to a very good series. I loved the worldbuilding. I loved the way El grew through the trilogy. She had so many decisions to make. ( )

This was really nice, especially towards the end. The beginning seemed like a bit too much filler, in the descriptions of the enclaves. I really didn't need to know all of that, and I had some trouble getting through it. But the story itself was great. I really liked how everything tied together. And I still really like El, and I love her friendships. ( )

The Golden Enclaves is the final book in The Scholomance trilogy by Naomi Novik. Again, the story picks up immediately where the second book leaves off so we don't have to wait to see the outcome of that cliffhanger. Thankfully! I can only imagine how much the wait would've sucked for someone reading this series as it published. El's crazy plan to get everyone out of Scholomance was, for the most part, a success. Now El is forced to face what to do with the rest of her life and there's an Enclave war about to start.

This book has left me with mixed feelings. After the initial resolution of the cliffhanger, the pacing slows down significantly. We're back to many info dumps of background information needed to setup for the final third of the book. I'm glad we got to learn the truth of the world right along with El. It is an ugly truth, one that has stuck with me even a couple weeks after finishing as I consider the philosophical question it asks: Is it OK to sacrifice one person in a most horrible for the benefit of the many? I'm just glad El had an alternative for everyone. Even so, this ending has a feeling of tragedy to it though there is technically a HEA in there too. Perhaps I should round up to 4 stars for how this is making me think things through.

Over all I think El's final words sum things up well: "It was, actually, a bit nice." ( )

The final instalment in the Scholomance trilogy picks up immediately where the previous book left off.

I didn’t enjoy it as much as the others -- perhaps because El’s headspace is less entertaining, yet nevertheless I believe that it’s important that the story allows El to be traumatised and grieving, and gives her space and safety to begin processing that. Moreover, it’s important to show that part of her journey in a way that’s realistic yet hopeful.

So it was worth reading. Novik does an excellent job of weaving together the various elements that have been part of this trilogy in surprising (and horrifying!) yet fitting ways, and as I suspected, she also concludes everything more positively than The Last Graduate did. And once again, I appreciated all the friendship and teamwork.

I read this all in one afternoon.

All of magic essentially involves sneaking something you want past reality while it’s distracted and looking the other way.

( )

I am amazed and deeply gratified. I really appreciate what Naomi Novik has done with this series. For the characters and the reader, this is a dark journey – you think you know your story, you think you understand what kind of story you are reading, and then everything is turned upside down and you are left gasping.

This is a book about the so-called good intentions and the price of compromise. It tells of willful blindness, the greater good that needs a sacrifice (yes, it’s horrible, but what can we do, this is how it’s done, after all….), and the convenient and tempting lies people tell themselves.

Yes, this is a cruel and angry book, or rather, cruel and rightfully angry. And yet, it is also humane, and there are people in it that make honourable choices instead of safe and selfish ones.

I LOVE EL SO MUCH…

The ending is beautiful.

P.S. I will happily re-read the Scholomance trilogy at some point :)
( )

The Scholomance series should be required reading at high schools world-wide, with good support groups to discuss it with the youth. Man, did I need this as a kid or what? It would have shaved years off of my progression into being a better person. ( )

This wasn't as smooth sailing for me as the previous two installments were. Lots of jumping around and trying to figure out what was going on. The character depth really suffered in this one, and though it was action-packed and did a nice job of wrapping some things up, I felt it was somewhat lackluster in delivering an ending of which El is worthy. I'd still recommend giving it a go, just be prepared for something far difference than you've experienced with the first two Scholarmance books. ( )

This wasn't as smooth sailing for me as the previous two installments were. Lots of jumping around and trying to figure out what was going on. The character depth really suffered in this one, and though it was action-packed and did a nice job of wrapping some things up, I felt it was somewhat lackluster in delivering an ending of which El is worthy. I'd still recommend giving it a go, just be prepared for something far difference than you've experienced with the first two Scholarmance books. ( )

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/hugos-2023-lodestar-award-for-best-ya-book/

I was colossally disappointed with this, the third in the Scholomance series (which is also up in Best Series). I had put the first volume top of my ballot in 2021, and the second volume second last year. But I felt it would have been better left as a two-parter. Our heroine traipses around the world, through different magical enclaves which are completely indistinguishable whether in Portugal or China, and engages in a quest to rescue the man she loves while also dealing with other emotional entanglements. Compared with the previous two books, I felt it completely lost focus. ( )

I feel like five stars aren't enough. Holy cow. ( )

Starting just minutes after the end of Lesson Two, Lesson Three starts with Galadriel “El” Higgins having just gotten all grades of the students in the Scholomance out alive- all except one. The door way has closed, forever, with one person left behind- Orion Lake, her love. And, given the circumstances, he has almost certainly been eaten by a maw-mouth. A death which is not actually death, but an eternity of conscious suffering. El feels she cannot leave her love to suffer like that; she- the only one who can kill a maw-mouth- must somehow return to the decaying Scholomance and kill the maw-mouth, freeing Orion to die completely. But she can’t do it alone. Re-enter her allies from the previous book, for a brief return to the Scholomance. Then the action moves to the existing Enclaves. Someone is attacking the enclaves, tearing them down, one after another. El has never even been in an Enclave, and has no idea how they are formed. The answer to that is pretty horrifying. But she has her precious book of sutras about creating Golden Enclaves, and figures she can put the world right, with her allies supplying the mana she needs.

I had problems with this volume. There isn’t the kind of character growth we saw in the first two books. As a narrator, El is still sarcastic and amusing, but she’s become someone who is never once tempted by taking the malia road for ease, and she keeps thinking how much better than other wizards she is because of this. Then she has sex with a girl she doesn’t even like, and never gives it a thought. The first time, she believes Orion is dead, but the second time they are just sort of bored and have the spare time. Now, I have no idea what the wizard world thinks about sex. It is stated that the girl and her partner have an open relationship, but I don’t think El and Orion have even had a chance to talk about it. Or I missed it when they did.

Then there is how disjointed the action is. When El gets Orion back, there is a (very) brief idle, and then there is non-stop running from one enclave to the other, killing mals, learning about how enclaves are formed, meeting Orion’s skeevy parents, making alliances that El really doesn’t like… it’s almost too much. Coming back to the book after a pause in reading, I frequently found myself having to go back a few pages to try and figure out where El was and what crisis she was currently taking charge of. The pacing is sort of “info dump- fast and sudden action- info dump- fast and sudden action” which I just found difficult to get into.

Was I disappointed? Yes. The first two volumes are definitely better. If Novik wrote a fourth novel to continue this story, would I read it? Definitely! ( )

I enjoyed this, but I do think the second book, with its emphasis on working together as a team to overcome a dangerous situation, remains my favorite. This takes El out of the world of the Scholomance, into the actual world where she has to deal with the consequences of her actions in book two, what has happened to her boyfriend Orion, and the secrets that underpin her universe.

Like the first, I feel like this one had to do a lot of explaining—now that we've left the environment of the first two books, there's a lot of exposition we need. So sometimes I got lost in the thaumababble about how enclaves work; it's definitely all thought through, but sometimes I felt like the book shows its work a bit too much, like reading a Brando Sando novel. There's also a lot of politics in this one. It's kind of the anti–Harry Potter; Rowling's books never really reckon with how Hogwarts fits into a lot of quite awful structures in the larger context of wizard society, but Novik does. I enjoyed it, and I see why the story had to engage with the broader world, but I did miss the clear focus of book two.