If you are missing the Wizarding World, check this book out! This was like Hunger Games meets Hogwarts meets Lord of the Flies, and I love it! A Deadly Education has been compared to Harry Potter due to it being about a school for magical beings, but pass being a school, the stories are very different. This book did have an issue when it came to publishing. I’m not entirely sure what happened. Naomi Novik and her team had either missed something or sent in the wrong copy of the manuscript for an edition and sent it out. There was a scene in had come off racist, I believe; I don’t know too much about what happened. Naomi has apologized, and I think all of the books were fixed as soon as she was aware of what happened. Some people belong to the offended groups that both saw and didn’t see it as racist, so take it as you will. Nevertheless, A Deadly Education was an exciting book to read, and the world was amazing! I highly recommend it to anyone who loved reading about magical adventures at school.
Summary
“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
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Positives
There are so many people from different cultural backgrounds in this book and I loved it! Since the author is white, no matter how much research you do, you will always say something that will come off racist whether you mean it or not. I appreciate her making the story diverse and not just people all of one color like many books are. A Deadly Education takes you on a wild ride that will leave you wondering what will come next. El is pretty much always having to stand up for herself and keep herself alive. There is no blood or gore, but there is a lot of action in this book.
I’ve been reading so quickly lately! Check out my tips here!
Negatives
Like I’ve mentioned before, there is the potential case of being racist. I will not give my thoughts on it because I do not belong to the groups that could have gotten offended, and in those groups, there are people on both sides. One thing I would have liked to see more of was the world building. I bought a special edition of the book, which included a couple of maps, so I got a good picture, but I don’t know if I would have gotten the whole picture by just reading the book. It takes a little time to understand how the school works and what is exactly is going on.
This book is NOT for everyone! If you like dark academia, you will most likely enjoy this book. It’s important to let Harry Potter leave your head. It’s not Harry Potter, and really shouldn’t be compared to.
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