Review: The Last Graduate (The Scholomance #2) by Naomi Novik

I am a huge fan of Naomi Novik's YA fantasy novels, especially Spinning Silver and Uprooted. Her Scholomance series is a little bit different, set at a dark school for magic. Unlike Hogwarts, this school seems to actively want to kill off its students!

The Last Graduate is the second book in the Scholomance series. It's like a cross between those witch/wizard school stories, like Harry Potter and The Worst Witch, with a hefty dose of The Hunger Games thrown in, and is both brutal and a little bit gruesome at times. Sure, the students at this school are here to learn magic, but they are also here to survive at any cost, which encourages an every-student-for-themselves mentality.

El and her friends are now seniors with the prospect of graduation looming ahead of them. You'd think they'd be delighted to leave the school far behind, except the graduation ceremony is the most deadly of all, with every mal (monster) waiting to devour them as soon as they enter the graduation hall. The practise runs are getting deadlier and deadlier, El can see no way for the students to survive unless they do something really radical... Like, work together?

This series is completely thrilling, edge-of-your-seat stuff, with El battling monsters and spells hurtling at her from every direction. The finale is amazing but (be warned) ends on a humongous cliff-hanger. The amount of work Naomi has put into creating this world, with no detail overlooked, is awe-inspiring. It reminded me a little of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. With that book the backstories were dropped into footnotes, and I did sometimes feel that all the detail (fabulous as it was) slowed down The Last Graduate just when I wanted to race ahead.

I loved the attitude of El (Student most like to say: 'Get lost, I can rescue myself'), who has spent most of her life being viewed with suspicion (thanks to her great-great grandmother's prophecy predicting she's going to cause death and destruction wherever she goes), and is unused to taking a hero's role. Orion, who has spent most of his life training to be a hero, is adorably confused. And El's familiar, Precious the mouse, is sooo cute! 

One of my favourite reads this year! I can't wait for the next one!

Thank you to Naomi Novik and Del Ray/Cornerstone/Random House for my copy of this book, which I requested via NetGalley and reviewed voluntarily.

Related Posts:

A Deadly Education (The Scholomance #1) by Naomi Novik

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Review: The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid

I downloaded this book after reading the blurb as the cover was not available at the time. I love stories based on folk tales and fairy tales (particularly ones I am not familiar with) and this sounded right up my street.

The Wolf and the Woodsman is a re-imagining of an event in medieval Hungarian history, woven with strands of Hungarian and Jewish folk stories.  Evike lives in a pagan village, hidden in a forest, the only one of its inhabitants without some kind of magical power. This is blamed on her father being an outsider: a 'Yehuli'. When soldiers from the Holy Order of Woodsmen arrive to claim a seer for the King, the villagers are only too happy to offer Evike up rather than lose one of their own girls.  But on the march back to the capital, the woodsmen are attacked by various supernatural forces and soon the Evike and the Captain are the only ones left. To survive, they will have to learn to not only trust each other, but work together.

Although I loved all the folk story and historical stuff, The Wolf and the Woodsman was a bit too gory for me! In order for a character's magic to work they had to use blood sacrifices, which usually involves blood-letting or the loss of a body part. I was uncomfortable with the parallels with self-harm and couldn't help wondering that if you had to sacrifice a finger every time you wanted to do a spell, what happened when you ran out of fingers? While the gore meant this read like an novel aimed at adults, by contrast the romance was a bit teenage-y and I'd have preferred more ambiguity about Gasper's character, rather than the too-early flagging that he's A Nice Guy Really.

Recommended to fans of grittier YA fantasy and books such as The Bear and the Nightingale (Katherine Arden).

Thank you to Ava Reid and Del Rey/Cornerstone for my copy of this book, which I requested from NetGalley and reviewed voluntarily.

Review: Magic Lessons (A Prequel to Practical Magic) by Alice Hoffman

I love Alice Hoffman's books. I discovered her after watching the film Practical Magic (starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman) and gradually worked my way through her backlist. Since Practical Magic was originally published she has written two prequels: The Rules of Magic (a story about the aunts from Practical Magic) and now Magic Lessons, which explains the origin of the family curse - that any man who ever loves an Owens woman will be broken in body and soul.

The story starts in 1664 when a baby girl is found abandoned in a snowy field close to the cottage of Hannah Owens, a herbalist and healer who has taught herself magic. When Hannah unwraps the baby's blanket she recognises an unusual birthmark shaped like a star - the mark of a bloodline witch. Is this why baby Maria has been abandoned? The story spans a 30 year period, following Maria as she finally meets her disreputable parents, is forced to flee England, becomes an indentured servant in Curacao, makes a living for herself in the fledgling city of New York, before ending up in Salem - and we all know what happened there...

If you do think you know what's going to happen, you're in for a surprise. Alice Hoffman ingeniously re-tells Maria's story as it appears in her earlier book but with some very clever twists. As Maria moves from place to place she makes a note in her grimoire of the plants that are grown locally and the uses they can be put to (both recipes and spells) and these notes are cleverly woven into the story. The amount of historical detail about England in the 17th century, life in the Caribbean and early New York is amazing. I wasn't sure I'd learn anything new about Salem but the author concentrates on the people who lived there and what motivated them to begin accusing their neighbours of witchcraft.

The writing is beautiful, with a dreamy fairy tale quality that pulled me right into the world the author has created. I loved the characters despite their flaws - it turns out that even a witch who can read every 'sign' is capable of walking straight into disaster! I especially loved Samuel and Cadin - both of whom had a lot to put up with! The story is also about women supporting women, mother-daughter relationships, women surviving in a man's world and life's harsh lessons.

Magic Lessons is the perfect story to read as the nights begin drawing in, for anyone who wants to lose themselves in a really good book, who loves historical novels or magic realism, or anything 'witchy'. Fans of Practical Magic will not be disappointed. One of my favourite reads this year.

Thank you to Alice Hoffman and Scribner/Simon & Schuster UK for my copy of this book, which I requested from NetGalley and reviewed voluntarily.

Review: A Deadly Education (Scholomance #1) by Naomi Novik

I love Naomi Novik's folklore-inspired fantasy novels. One of my all-time favourite books is Spinning Silver, which is a re-imagining of Rumpelstiltskin so I was thrilled to get my hands on an early copy of A Deadly Education. It wasn't quite what I was expecting but I really enjoyed it. Imagine a kind of Harry Potter where everything is out to get you, not just the bad guy!

El (short for Galadriel) has been born into a magical family and is now studying at the Scholomance - a school for magic that (unlike Hogwarts) seems to actively want to kill its students. All El wants to do is learn magic and survive the first year - without the help of popular rich boy Orion. Oh yes, and there's a prophecy that says one day El will bring death and destruction to all the magical enclaves in the world...

Naomi Novik has created an amazing, original and incredibly detailed world. Sometimes it's best to just go with the flow rather than try to understand everything. The story is fast-paced (with near-death experiences in practically every chapter) and completely thrilling. I truly had no idea what was going to happen next. Part of the fun is to see El slowly forced to make friends - she is so used to people assuming she's into dark magic, she has always kept her distance from everyone and prefers to work out things on her own. Her relationship with Orion (who is determined to save everyone, whether they want it or not) is also sweet and funny.

A Deadly Education is a school-of-magic story with a slightly darker edge that Naomi Novik's regular readers will love. It should also appeal to fans of authors such as Soman Chainani (The School for Good and Evil). I loved El and Orion, and was completely swept away by the novel's originality and exuberance. I can't wait for the next one!

Thank you to Naomi Novik and Del Ray/Cornerstone for my copy of this book, which I requested via NetGalley and reviewed voluntarily.

A Deadly Education will be released on 29th September 2020