GIVE ME THE THIRD BOOK OH MY GOD I NEED IT ( )

A really solid follow-up but what a sudden ending! Gah! I need another chapter or two, please. ( )

Inhaled, but I think review will have to wait for a re-read, sometime before book three comes out. ( )

Lots of action and adventure. Enjoyed Orion and El more in the first book but this was lots of fun too. ( )

Amazing! Love! Bullshit way to leave me on a cliffhanger!!! I was again amazed at how much I adored this book even when I wanted to scream at our main character. I enjoyed it and loved how the story went, EVEN THOUGH THE ENDING ALMOST. MADE ME LOSE MY MIND! I can't wait to read the next and final one. ( )

And here I am, yet again, jaw dropped and in a daze. The plot twists that all add up, never leaving any point in the book left with questions, and then the ending. The ending!
I want to say That I expected it but I didn’t.
And I love being wrong. It makes me so mad and happy at the same time. Grrrrrrrrr and I have to wait until the end of 2022 for the Third book!!!!! ( )

The Last Graduate wasn't as good as A Deadly Education, but it's a good continuation of the story. Both books in the series have kept me guessing, not trusting anything completely. I can't wait until the third book in the series comes out. ( )

Still snarky, still fun.

The Last Graduate continues on the same dark humor note as A Deadly Education. And right from the beginning, we can see that El will have a lot to deal with this year. Luckily, she is not alone anymore.

If I said that in the first book, I had trouble seeing how many students are actually in school. This book definitely fixed that problem. As the graduation nears, the alliances are being finalized and El, the past loner, is forced to interact with more and more people. Some she likes, some she can barely stand, some can barely stand her.

With so many new characters, El's and Orion's interactions get pushed into the background. I wish we have gotten more of their relationship right from the beginning, but later we get enough to make up for it.

There is also more focus on learning about the school itself. There is a lot of new mystery and discoveries. Some of those are quite game-changing.

This book probably even more than the first one deals with morality. Should you be selfish or risk your life for others? Especially in this place where selfishness became the norm. And one thing is thinking about how someone will behave in a crisis, but how will they actually behave? And are certain actions good if they have worse consequences? For a YA, this book delves quite deep into that area.

Also, can I say how glad I am that I finished just a few days before the third book comes out? Because I have no clue how I would survive waiting one year after reading that ending.

The second book might not have been as great as the first but still a 5* material. It did have a bit slower start, in my opinion, but the end really made up for it.

Free copy received in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Still a good series, but major ding for ending on a cliffhanger. It's unnecessary and manipulative. ( )

It would have been 5 stars, but one gets deleted for a cliffhanger ending. Otherwise, another awesome installment. ( )

slutten…. ( )

WHY. Would you end it that wayyy? If you hate waiting for books to come out after a cliffhanger, keep moving. If the release of the 2nd book is any indication, the 3rd book will come out around September 27, 2022. Which is incredible, compared to *some* authors.

Anyways I'm in love with these books and I want them to be about a dozen of these for me to read and reread. The magic system is really cool and I love the dark brutal logic of the world they live in, forcing them to be incredibly selfish and to expect everyone to be that way, until they aren't.

Also just putting it out there, but I would shell out a lot for a leather-ish bound set of this series.... ( )

El conocimiento otorga protección. Ese es el lema oficial de la Escolomancia. Supongo que podríamos decir que es cierto…, el problema es que aquí resulta muy difícil aprender, por lo que la protección de la que disponemos es más bien escasa.

Nuestro querido colegio hace todo lo posible por devorar a sus alumnos, pero ahora que estoy en último curso y he conseguido unos cuantos aliados, ha desarrollado un antojo de lo más particular por mí. Incluso si consigo sobrevivir a las interminables oleadas de maleficaria con las que me obsequia entre los agotadores proyectos para clase, no tengo ni idea de cómo mis aliados y yo vamos a salir vivos del salón de grados.

A no ser, por supuesto, que acepte de una vez mi profetizado destino y sucumba a la magia oscura y la destrucción. Desde luego, de esa forma saldría en un santiamén. Adentrándome en la senda del conocimiento, sin duda.

Pero no pienso rendirme: ni a los mals ni al destino, y mucho menos a la Escolomancia. Saldré de este horrible lugar con mis amigos aunque sea lo último que haga. ( )

This took forever to get going. Forever. The first 250 pages I was bored out of my mind and actively looked forward to the book being over and it's rare I get into a state like this. I was bored with El explaining how the whole wizarding world and the Scholomance school worked and examples of how horrifying it was without seemingly ANY story movement or character development at all.

But then the last 100 pages or so are excellent, I got really into it. I get the feeling the first two books should have been one, longer book. The way the students start to work together was really interesting and the final few pages are a great cap off to a solid build. The final few pages in particular had me on the edge of my seat. 1 or 1.5 stars for the first 3/4, but then 4 or 4.5 for the last 1/4. I'll settle on a 3, and I'm excited for the last book in the trilogy! ( )

This middle book of the Scholomance trilogy concerns El's Senior year. She begins the year being the _target of the Scholomance and honing her fighting skills. She has managed to make some friends and build some alliances but is separated from them for most of her classmates and when she is put in a seminar with assorted Freshman.

She is determined first to find a way to get her friends through to graduation and through the fight that is necessary if they are to leave the Scholomance behind. But gradually, she determines that she won't be satisfied until she gets all of the Seniors out alive. Since many of them don't trust her and even more don't know her, this is going to be a difficult task. Luckily, she is befriended by the class's valedictorian who has more than enough ideas of ways to make El's task possible even if she is a difficult person and not El's friend.

As the training goes on, El realizes that the only way she will be satisfied is if she manages to get all of the students out of the Scholomance - Freshman to Seniors. To do this she is going to have to depend on most of the other students to help and to put aside the rivalries and self-centered behavior that were the skills that got them out before.

This wouldn't seem like a good time to fall in love but El manages to fit it in. She and Orion Lake have been rivals since their first days in the Scholomance. He's the popular Enclaver who has become the school hero by saving countless lives including El's. He's also the only one other than El who is almost certain to be able to win their way out of the Scholomance.

The worldbuilding in this story is fantastic. From a complex political system and magical system to a wide variety of evil creatures determined to eat the young wizards, the story is packed with intriguing ideas. It is also packed full of adventure. But even more it is packed with ethical dilemmas and the need to make the right choices.

Fans of epic fantasy will enjoy this one - but read A DEADLY EDUCATION first. ( )

Fantastic

Absolutely brilliantly different and i couldn't put it down from the first page. Thrilled to have found this author. Obsessed.

I've been in a huge reading funk, and this is the first new book I've been able to finish in quite a while...
I had a few moments where the pacing didn't completely work for me, but overall, I loved the writing style and the characters. Mostly El. But also her friends. And I liked the development of the school, becoming more collaborative.
I was less of a fan of Orion, I must admit. He's pretty dense and clueless. I hope the idiot redeems himself in the next book and acquires some depth.

I read it a second time as preparation for book 3. I really liked it again, and this time at least I knew I would be able to get past the cliffhanger soon... ( )

I really enjoyed the first in the trilogy, A Deadly Education, and had high hopes for The Last Graduate. I was not disappointed. It is hard to review a middle book of a trilogy, especially if one is trying to avoid spoilers, and so I will not offer much about the plot here. El has always been an outcast, especially given the nature of the magic she wields. But she is not without friends in her final year at the Scholomance. And she will need everyone of them if they are all to survive the deadly graduation ritual that is known to claim students lives. If you like fantasy novels with intricate world building, school settings, and plenty of monsters to fight, you will enjoy this series. I have really enjoyed seeing El's growth as a person over the course of the first two books, and even more so in this second installment. This one was hard to put down. I will offer you one spoiler: the ending is a huge cliffhanger. I came very close to starting the next book right away, but am holding off, torturing myself for some odd reason I can't explain. I probably won't wait much longer though. I have to know what happens! ( )

The Last Graduate is the second book in The Scholomance trilogy by Naomi Novik. The story picks up right where the first book left off, with the same line of text! It's senior year for El and her friends. Time to solidify alliances formed at the end of sophomore year, work on strategies for the final run through the graduation hall and, hopefully, freedom.

In the first book there was a lot of telling about what El's powers are like. In this book we finally get to witness El in all her dark sorceress glory first hand. "Love me and despair" version indeed! It was glorious. El, Aadya and Liu all go on character arcs as they work through how to make their magic work together for the betterment of all. Initially I was annoyed we didn't see very much of Orion. It did make sense as the book progressed and his problem with his magic was revealed. Also, that romance was very sweet and almost restrained, which was probably for the best considering the situation.

What I enjoyed the most is the characterizations of the Scholomance itself. Even though the kids keep thinking the school is out to get them, it really isn't. The "trial by fire" approach is brutal yet effective at building the skills the kids will need to survive graduation. Scholomance is doing its best to fulfill its charter to protect and educate all the wise born children of the world. The school even gives El a classroom full of freshmen for her to care about and mentor as part of her growth. Very clever of it as I think this was part of what got El onboard with the school's mission.

Be still my beating heart! Now that's a proper cliffhanger of an ending. I'm glad this series is complete so I can move directly on to The Golden Enclaves. That ending was an emotional roller coaster even before the cliffhanger. I am a bit sad for the Scholomance. It's not really destroyed, just going to be floating in space, full of angry mals, for who knows how long. I know it's not living exactly but it's a terrible fate for anything sentient, which the school is. Oh and with Orion for however long he lasts if El can't find a way back to grab his monster killing ass through the door. Wish the kid would've just stuck to the plan but sadly this is directly in line with his character. It's probably the one time he's really been able to feed his power properly and might have been too big of a high to resist. ( )

Everything I said in my review of A Deadly Education can certainly be said about its sequel. Besides that, there are plot twists I did not quite see coming, great character development for El (and everyone else), bigger scope, and El trying so very hard to NOT have romance in her life.
The ending is one of those horrible cliffhangers that authors should not be allowed to write :))) ( )

El is now a senior and we are spectators as she and her classmates battle to try to graduate. I found the inner monologues a *bit* tedious at times, but the action is steady as the story heads toward a satisfying (?) cathartic conclusion.


But wait... Does it have a cathartic conclusion?! Ack - talk about cliffhangers! Is Novik going to write book 3 or is this it? Will El and Orion's story continue? ( )

The sequel to A Deadly Education is about El’s final year at the Scholomance. Everyone’s focus turns to preparing to survive graduation.

It is absolutely gripping and it ends on something of a cliff-hanger -- which is to say, something goes wrong in the midst of victory and I am assuming that the third book will offer at least some sort of resolution to that.

But, as I’ve been waiting to see if my library will get The Golden Enclaves (or if I should just buy it myself), I’ve noticed -- much to my surprise -- I don’t feel any great urgency to read on. The Last Graduate has a type ending I would expect that I’d hate, if it were the final ending (and not just the end of the second book in a trilogy), and yet, the idea of leaving these characters here feels… right. There’s resolution to something El and her friends have been working towards for the past two books. And victory has come at a cost in a way which fits this story.

Anyway, if the library doesn’t get The Golden Enclaves, I will eventually buy it, because I have every reason to assume I will enjoy reading it. I’m amused by El’s banter, the teamwork has been satisfying and it’s fun to read something so fast-paced and engrossing every so often.

[...] and since we didn’t have anything better on offer, they all started to grab bits of Liu’s plan, because it was the only one that was far enough along to start doing work, and it began to lurch down the runway like a half-built plane that people were literally holding up and carrying while other people were still putting on the wheels and wings and seats, trying to get the steering and the engine in order, and other people were running after it carrying the luggage.

( )

Now THAT was an ending! Two days later and I'm still laughing at Novik's audacity! This book was especial adept at building the action up while not neglecting character. But at its core, this book is about PLACE... and we got that in spades. Loved the continued fantastical monsters and wonky magic systems that still somehow make sense. Where will we go from here? I can't wait to find out!

Definitely read it. ( )

It just keeps getting better. I wonder how long we'd have to wait for the next one ( )

The second volume in the Scholomance Trilogy finds the narrator, Galadriel “El” in her senior year. The graduating class has escaped, and the new load of freshmen have been portaled in. In this school, where there are no instructors, assignments appear by magic, and one never knows what one will be doing. El goes to her “homeroom” and finds eight freshmen- her most loathed creatures. Over the course of the book, though, she finds herself teaching them how to survive the mal – the malignant magical creatures that live in the school, killing many students- and even starting to care about them.
There is a lot of character building in this book. El learns to trust (sort of), although every time she screws up she figures her new friends will no longer want to be around her. She makes some friends, and her relationship with Orion develops- reluctantly and with a lot of jive talk. People learn to trust her, the alleged evil sorceress who may turn on them at any moment.

There is also a lot of info dumps, even more than in the first volume, but they are worked in nicely so they don’t jar the reader out of the narrative. And a large amount of the story is devoted to the seniors practicing for their ‘graduation’, when they all run across the gym, with every mal in the school trying to kill them. In some years, as few as 20% of the class survives, so practice is taken very seriously. El realizes that the only way to be sure you’ll survive is to work with others- which is why alliances are so important. Of great importance is the realization that the Scholomance itself might be sentient, and is having a hand in El’s idea. And El’s post-school ambitions change, as she delves in her magic book about a different type of Enclave from the ones that exist.

This book is better than most middle books in trilogies, but it has a few places where it bogs down. The descriptions of the many runs through the magical obstacle course in the gym get a bit tedious. All in all, the book works just fine and I couldn’t put it down. Except… the ending. If you don’t like cliff hangers, have book three in your hands before you read two! Five stars. ( )