A Deadly Education
My rating
3 / 5
Self-Purchased copy
Author
Naomi Novik
Publisher
Penguin Random House UK
Genre
Fantasy
Number of Pages
312
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Summary
Deadly Education is about a school of magic with no teachers. The goal is to survive through the year and get to the next.
El, or Galadriel, is the fiery heroine in the story. She is about to enter her senior year at school and has as yet, no friends to call her own.
That’s about the story of the book. In between, you have to manage to keep surviving the infinite attempts by magical monstrous creatures that keep coming at you randomly.
Orion Lake is the savior hero that keeps saving everyone’s lives from these monsters. Everyone worships him except El.
‘I decided that Orion Lake needed to die after the second time he saved my life.’
My Review
This book should come with an illustrated dictionary. It’s a good thing the book comes with a top view and cross-section view of the school and pictures of Ell’s dormitory. Else I really would have been lost.
I felt like reading a user manual to the magical school. How to get what you need at school? What are the rules you need to follow? Why are things the way they are? Who are the privileged kids? Why are they privileged? Why are there no teachers? What do the students do at this kind of school? And all related questions will be answered. Maybe the author was preparing you for what’s coming up.
There’s not much dialogue in the book. I was hoping there was more. Whatever dialogue did happen between the characters kept me going. Else I would’ve mostly given up on the book.
I did not understand the hype surrounding the book. I saw a faint interest building up when I realized that El’s great-grandmother had narrated a prophecy foretelling she would turn to the dark side. But that light quickly dimmed. And the how-to guide continued.
I couldn’t help but compare it to HP. In HP, another fantasy based on a school of magic, we always knew there would be a day when Harry would have to face You-Know-Who in person, and I looked forward to that day through 7 books. I see no such motivation here. Or at least I couldn’t find it.
Final Verdict
Hoping there’s more of an exceptional plot and some great dialogue in the upcoming book. Else this book is wasted time and money.
Who Should Read This
Die-hard fantasy fans who read nothing but fantasy should give this a try. But otherwise, you can keep this book on your TBR until the next one is out, and it reeks of nothing but a great storyline.
Naomi Novik
An avid reader of fantasy literature since age six, when she first made her way through The Lord of the Rings, Naomi Novik is also a history buff with a particular interest in the Napoleonic era and a fondness for the work of Patrick O’Brian and Jane Austen. She studied English literature at Brown University, and did graduate work in computer science at Columbia University before leaving to participate in the design and development of the computer game Neverwinter Nights: Shadow of Undrentide. Over the course of a brief winter sojourn spent working on the game in Edmonton, Canada (accompanied by a truly alarming coat that now lives brooding in the depths of her closet), she realized she preferred writing to programming, and on returning to New York, decided to try her hand at novels.
Naomi lives in New York City with her husband and six computers. Her website is at naominovik.com
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