A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik was given eighth place in the Goodreads choice awards for fantasy last year and has been nominated again this year. Unfortunately this book will not be receiving my vote although at this time I have not yet decided which book I will be voting for. This is the first book in a new series and I do have high hopes that future editions to the series will be better as it shows a lot of promise.
The basic idea here is that magical children are teleported away to The Scholomace for education and safety from the mals ( evil creatures attracted to the easy target of young magic user) though not all make it into the school. The school itself is dangerous as well yet even with the horde of mals waiting at the graduation gates to feast on everyone trying to leave the school once a year and the few who make it into the rest of the building the survival rate os those inside the school is still better than if they were left in the general magical population.
While completing school work is important it only because the school will attack those who don't complete their work the samation of alliances is almost more important. This is problematic thoug for those who don't come from an enclave and who are not interested n making friends in the first place.
What I liked about this book was that it is relatively unique. The fact that the main character actually goes through a very clear mental and maturity growth is a plus as well. She really improves as she learns about herself and her classmates. Unfortunately that is pretty much everything good I can say about this book. I enjoyed reading the book when I first started it but around halfway through it became clear that a lot of the book is repetitive. The book ended up becoming slow with the group just fighting off mals and not making much progress on the storyline for a while.it actually got to the point that I was about ready to put the book down.it is also rather predictable.
The ideal target audience for this book is teens to some young adults. I believe the book is too much for most readers younger than teens but at the same time it lacks the detail and depth needed to really capture the attention of older readers. I can only rate this book a 2 out of 5 at best with the hope that it is just a slow start to a good series.
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Thank you, Melissa
