While I’ve not read any of Naomi Novik’s previous books, everything I’ve heard is positive. The depth of imagination within the field of her work is often praised, as is the level of thought and the scope of the world she writes. That is all present in her most recent book, A Deadly Education, the first book in a new series set in a school for magic.
The intricacies and layers to the world of the Scholomance—the school in which our protagonist and narrator, Galadriel, or El, is locked into until she graduates or dies—is a showcase for Novik’s powerful imagination. This world is a dangerous one, filled with creatures who feed on those with magic. The politics of being a wizard is also a dangerous one as alliances, factions and exclusions are par for the course and comprise the world which El is forced to navigate.
The sheer power of Novik’s imagination is on display as the depth of lore and the unusualness of the way she takes old ideas (school for magic) and twists, subverts, or totally reinvents them is saturated across every page. However, there is a significant issue that meant there were several points when I became very frustrated with the book: there are simply enormous chunks of exposition (often, they go on for pages) scattered throughout the novel and going right through the story. While it’s an efficient way to give the information which takes us through the history, lore, and mechanics of how the magic systems and structures work, it’s tedious reading and really detracts from the flow of the story.
I can’t help but wonder if there was a more efficient way to convey the same information but without taking so much away from the story; the first time I encountered one of the info-dumps, I was actually confused and thought there was a flashback, or it was something El was discovering in the context of the narrative events. Crucially, I’m not actually sure that they always explained what I needed to in order to navigate the plot with a clear understanding of the necessary information. I’m still confused as to what mals (the creatures which seek to consume the wizards) actually are. There was some suggestion that they were created by wizards, but it was equally possible that they manifested from somewhere else? Perhaps I missed it because I skimmed over it while I was hacking through those pages of exposition. Regardless, it was a piece of information I would have quite liked reinforced a few times so that I completely understood what El and the entire wizarding world was up against, given these mals pose such an existential threat and which the students at the scholomance are confronted with in a sink-or-swim style of preparing them for the outside world. Moreover, the novel is littered with sentences that I had to read multiple times in order to understand, because they could have been reworded for better clarity. It’s a bugbear of mine to encounter unwieldy or confusing sentences, especially when there’s already so much information I need to take in.
At its heart, the story is quite an interesting one, exploring questions of self-fulfilling prophecies (when you expect people to reject you and hate you and act in pre-emptive accordance with that belief, they tend to find you prickly and don’t want to be around you), and the very lovely message that being nice to people and working together can actually achieve good results. I can also acknowledge that I was uncertain of where exactly the story was going to go—something quite refreshing. The story did take a bit to actually start, but once it did, I was certainly hooked. Happily, it increased in pace as the finale neared, which made for quite gripping reading in between the blocks of exposition.
Unfortunately, many of the ‘big’ and tantalising ongoing questions of the novel are left without any reveals being offered to the reader, presumably because Novik plans to answer them in sequels. However, I’m of the firm belief that at least something needs to be learned or revealed across each book so that the reader can work to their own hypothesis. We are told quite early on that there is a doomsday prophecy about Galadriel, and that she has an affinity for dark power that means she could wreak a significant amount of destruction if she so chose. It doesn’t really feel as though either of the questions posed by those things are adequately addressed. More strangely, at no point does El seem to be curious about why she might have this affinity, or concerned that the prophecy might be true. It seems an oversight for a character who I quite liked precisely because she was thoughtful, intelligent, and reflective.
A Deadly Education is an interesting read, offering readers a fascinating and complex world. It’s a shame that the story was so often detracted by inelegant expository chunks, because I very much enjoyed it when the story was allowed to flow freely.
A Deadly Education is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
In the start of an all-new series, the bestselling author of Uprooted and Spinning Silver introduces you to a dangerous school for the magically gifted where failure means certain death – until one girl begins to rewrite its rules.
Enter a school of magic unlike any you have ever encountered.
There are no teachers, no holidays, friendships are purely strategic, and the odds of survival are never equal.
Once you’re inside, there are only two ways out: you graduate or you die.
El Higgins is uniquely prepared for the school’s many dangers. She may be without allies, but she possesses a dark power strong enough to level mountains and wipe out untold millions – never mind easily destroy the countless monsters that prowl the school.
Except, she might accidentally kill all the other students, too. So El is trying her hardest not to use it… that is, unless she has no other choice.
Wry, witty, endlessly inventive, and mordantly funny – yet with a true depth and fierce justice at its heart – this enchanting novel reminds us that there are far more important things than mere survival.
