A Deadly Education by Naomi NovikMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Am one of those who absolutely ADORED Novik's UPROOTED and SPINNING SILVER. Loved loved LOVED them!!
It's a testament to the skill of Novik that this first book in a new series "sounds" so different from the previous books... because it is, after all, a totally different world.
It's about a school of magic, yes, but it's as different from HARRY POTTER as night is from day.
Rowling's world was pretty fleshed out, spells and all. Novik manages to build an entirely different magical school so unlike Hogwarts that no one can accuse her of being less than original!
I feel like I should warn YA readers (and their parents) that if you come into this expecting something like Harry Potter, you will be bitterly disappointed.
Novik's world is ever so much deadly and cruel. This is a school where students die every day, either from being attacked by one of hundreds of malicious creatures who want to eat all the students inside a shabbily protected campus, or from one of their own selfish schoolmates (of the "Better you than me" variety).
The bloodthirsty viciousness of the book truly SHOCKED me!
But perhaps this speaks of our changing times. These are less gentle days, and Novik managed to put that dog-eat-dog-world in the REAL world inside the pages of this fantasy book, which makes it all the more "realistic" despite all the magic.
I was also struck by how she showed parallels about privilege and race in our real world, in this book. And heck, even sexual assault showed up, thinly disguised as an attack by a maw-mouth.
Novik is known for her feminism, and El (short for Galadriel) is one of the most foul-mouthed, tough heroines I've ever come across. She's so bad-ass, she says things like "Reader, I ran the f*** away" and throws around references to LOTR along with Bronte, all while kicking monster-butt and doing her best to keep the darkness within drowned out by the light of goodness.
This is a very promising first book. Please oh please, will the second magick itself into my bookshelf pretty soon??
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