A Deadly Education by. Naomi Novik | Book Review

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️💫

Title: A Deadly Education (The Scholomance, #1)

Author: Naomi Novik

Format: eBook (owned)

Pages: 336

Publication Date: 9/29/20

Publisher: Del Rey Books

Categories: Series, Young Adult, Dark Academia, Romance

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. 

Content Warning: Violence

This one did not work for me even though there were some parts I actually did like about the story.

I like how appropriate the title of this book is. It is a deadly education indeed! I like the tone – there are monsters everywhere, I don’t even see how these kids survive and not a lot do. El is the perfect main character for a place like this school – she is grumpy, sassy, rude, not someone you will like or relate to, definitely not a likable character but she’s smart and aware of her surroundings, she knows how to survive this school, I give her credit for that! Her relationship with Orion the hero of Scholomance is one of my favorite parts. They become reluctant friends, and eventually more than friends but that was the only time the story held onto my interest. I did think the world building is great, a school infested with monsters – sounds pretty crazy and they have to use their magic skills to stay alive and graduate.

What didn’t work for me is we are seriously in El’s head the whole time! This book is only 336 pages and took me 2 weeks or more to finish! 😳 It’s a lot of info dumping and rambling and I could not get through it fast enough. It would have been nice to have more dialogue with other characters. I skipped a lot of her rambling. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Why you should read it:

• you are a fan of the author (this was my first book from her)
• dark academia – these kids can’t leave the school unless they survive by killing monsters and then graduate!
• El and Orion are such an unlikely pair, she’s the grump and he’s the nice guy

Why you might not want to read it:

• you are in El’s head a lot, a lot of rambling

My Thoughts:

This did not work for me, I skipped a lot when all I was getting from the book was El’s thoughts. It might have been due to my mood as well because I did love the world building and concept. Also the action parts were great but the rest was just not working for me. I’m not sure if I will continue the series but I am curious to see what happens next.

📚 ~ Yolanda