A Deadly Education: the story with real monsters under the bed...

...and in the pipes and showers and cafeteria food and the walls. Basically, there are monsters everywhere at the Scholomance school, waiting for a student to let their guard down and devour them. Everyday of her three years at the Scholomance, Galadriel has had to watch her own back for every single minute of the day, and the night. All the mals in the world have zoned in on El, but luckily (or unluckily in her opinion) the school's mal-hunting superstar Orion Lake has come to her defense...multiple times...against her wishes. Because of Orion a significant percentage of the student body is more alive at this time of year than any other year. This means that the school's ecosystem has been thrown out of balance. No magic is good when it's out of balance.

So this book took me a long time to read, and that's not a bad thing. It wasn't that I didn't like it or wasn't connecting. It's just that thing of reading a book that you really want to read at the wrong point in your life. I have so many things bogging my mind down that it was almost impossible to escape with this book. It was only the last 100 pages that totally whisked me away.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the story. Everyone was saying it was a more deadly Harry Potter. Yes, it's about student wizards in a school, but that's about where the comparisons stop. This school is deadly, the magic comes from effort and hard work, not just a wave of the wand. And the protagonist, Galadriel or El, is pretty awful. At least, everyone else in the school thinks so. El has no friends, has no interest in making friends (she says) and is rude to basically everyone. That's why her character arcs is honestly one of my favorites. Her wall thawing happens so slowly, until you almost don't realize that it's happening, and the ending is just so perfect in heart warming but in a dry way :)

Novik's writing style takes a little getting used to if you haven't read her Uprooted or Spinning Silver. Her paragraphs are longer, chapters longer, and not much dialogue is mixed in, and I think that speaks to the power of her in action description. We don't necessarily learn most of the characters based off of what they say, but of how they act, react, and treat others. It's so masterful, and not many people can pull it off.

And let me tell you, no spoilers, but her last line is just a killer and has me on pins and needles for the next one (which is hopefully in 9 months!!!). This book is effortlessly diverse, slow burning yet exciting, with ace character development. It's different than anything else I've read this year, and I'm so glad I stuck it out even though my brain was so distracted because the last 100 pages was everything.