A Deadly Education, Naomi Novik | Book Review

A Deadly Education is Naomi Novik’s hotly-anticipated first book in the Scholomance series, following a rather dangerous school filled not just with magicians, but monsters too. I was really excited to read this and get my review up.

A Deadly Education, Naomi Novik

Themes: Young adult, fantasy, magic school

Reading Format: eBook

3 STARS // 6.4 CAWPILE

Disclaimer: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no extra cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Thank you so much, Cornerstone Digital for sending me an e-copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. This book is released in the UK on September 29th. 

This book is set solely in a magic school where you either graduate or die trying. There are no teachers, no rules, you look after yourself. The premise sounds like a bad dream to be thrown into,  but in the very best way for a book plot. It reminds me a bit of the horror in Spirited Away when that poor kid lands herself in a right mess away from parents, rules or logic.

The big thing I would say about this book being set purely in a school is it feels very isolated. We aren’t talking Hogwarts where there’s constantly a new magical corridor to explore, we’re talking more the schools you and I would know from our own educations. The main locations we saw were a few classrooms, the cafeteria, toilets and bedrooms. Novik did a good job of making the reader feel as trapped as the students do, but I found it made the story quite stretched out and at times repetitive.

This book is the first in a series and certainly felt like an introduction book. This whole book was setting up the characters, the world, the school, which I get is the point of a first book, but it just felt a bit too much. I wanted the story to get on and get moving, but instead, I felt I was reading a user manual for the world Novik was creating. Not to say this is a bad thing, as I did enjoy this book and reading about the weird world it is set in. But I just felt myself willing it to end a few times because it did get a bit boring in the middle.

I really liked the concept of every student learning a different type of spell and different languages etc. Being teacherless this school teaches the kids itself by providing them with library books they may or may not have wanted and making pictures on the wall come alive to demonstrate certain types of monsters. It added a certain level of humour to the book that you can’t entirely pick what you study and to a certain extent you get what you’re given.

Galadriel is our main character, who yes, is named after Tolkien’s Galadriel, which I love a lot. It’s a subtle reference that is picked up on a few times in the book and it made me happy. I’d say she’s a fairly average character, isn’t well-liked, doesn’t quite know why, wants to survive, will do what it takes. She definitely grew on me, but she never wowed me. She is morally grey and has a dark side that she is trying to silence, which makes her interesting in terms of what her motivations are. I’d be intrigued to see how this is explored in future books.

And finally, the monsters. There are so many different types of worrying creatures in this book and honestly, I got a bit lost with what they were all meant to look like. But the general idea of never really being able to rest for fear of being killed viciously by an evil creature is conveyed quite successfully in this book. I felt the pressure and the tension and the instability of these students.

Overall, whilst I did enjoy this book, it was just missing something. I’m not so sure what that was, but I wanted a bit more from it that I didn’t get. Perhaps further books in the series will pick up on the action and variation if we get out of the school setting.

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