REVIEW: ‘A Deadly Education’ by Naomi Novik
This was definitely a case of ‘BookTok made me do it’, but I’ve had ‘A Deadly Education’ by Naomi Novik on my radar for a little while now. But finally, the pressure of seeing it flick through my feed on both TikTok and IG made me cave. So when I saw it on the shelf of my small, humble library, I took it as a sign from the universe. It was time.
Everything about this book promises to be right up my alley. On paper, this is my jam.
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. - Goodreads
I was immediately impressed with the world building. There is something refreshing and unique about the setting and how the characters have to interact with their surroundings. What I was surprised with was that I didn’t click with the story right out of the gate.
The writing is top notch, and I truly appreciate the thought and care that went into it. But there was a kind of disconnect for me, and it took me a long while to put my finger on it. Even now, I’m not entirely sure why I didn’t hit it off with this book. But here’s where I think it went wrong for me:
If a book promises to be dark, I want dark-dark. An unfortunate side-effect of testing my boundaries within literature is that I’m now a bit desensitised to a lot of otherwise grim scenes and vibes. I think ‘A Deadly Education’ is dark, in the similar vein of ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ because El and her classmates just cannot catch a break.
There is something almost “twee” about the writing that I wasn’t expecting. I described this in my review on IG, but I was a surprised by the grim-cosy writing style. Does that make sense? It’s a bit like… thinks if you crossed Terry Pratchett with Rainbow Rowell and then they birthed a book under a full moon… Did that help? HA! Probably not.
I wanted to throttle Orion almost the whole way through. It wasn’t until right near the end that I started to appreciate the nuance of his character.
I can’t really call any of those points “criticisms” because it’s just how my own personal taste doesn’t match up with the vibe of the book. What I whole-heartedly enjoyed about the read:
El is a prickly and consistant character. I like that she sticks to her guns, that she has a system and the system works, so why change it? I thought that the more of her character and backstory was revealed, the easier it became for me to stay with the story.
It doesn’t rely on a romance for an emotional tug. Don’t get me wrong, I adore a romance, but I truly appreciated that this book took a different approach. I really felt like this reflected a lot of my experiences at school, especially as a younger teen, where you ended up dating people by default and it really wasn’t that deep. Especially when you had more important things to be focusing on.
The plot itself is relatively quiet. It’s all contained within the confines of the school, because they literally cannot leave, and I really enjoyed the way this brought the focus right down to the minutiae of the environment. Because school is nothing if not a microcosm of the teenage experience. It’s a bubble. Take away the adults and add a layer of constant threat and it’s doubly dangerous.
World building and creature creation. The imagination of this author… What I wouldn’t give to have an ounce of that. Just share a drop of that creative juice with me, please? Every creature, every character, every room in the school, all so carefully detailed and thought through.
All in all, I like this book. I’m interested to see how the characters and story evolves in the next book so I'll pick it up at some point. I ended up giving it 3 stars, which might seem harsh, but I almost always have a deeper personal connection to the books I rate higher than that. It’s a unique and compelling reading experience and I look forward to seeing where it goes.
Have you read ‘A Deadly Education’? What did you think?
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Written by Sarah
