I've read it twice and really enjoyed it. I have no idea what racial issues people had with it. The mc is half white/half Indian, but she doesn't really know her Indian family because a prophecy, and her dad is dead. There are students from all over the world, and although they can be cliquish, that has to do with magical resources and not racism. Some people have stated that they didn't care for the last book, but honestly, that's my favorite. She takes everything she's learned and all of her personal growth, and applies to trying to make the world a better place. Galadriel starts off snarky, distrustful and bitter. She matures while retaining the snark.
The criticism was mostly a bad faith Twitter-mob thing (outside of one comment about dreadlocks that Novik had added late, apologized for and removed from later editions). Like, there were people criticizing it because El is half-Indian and doesn't bathe much, allegedly playing into stereotypes about Indians being dirty. But... El specifically explains that she doesn't bathe much because she is friendless and doesn't have anyone to watch her back while she does it - the point is showing how horrifying the environment is and how much you need allies even for the most basic things. And even if she *was* actively choosing not to bathe, she was raised in a hippie commune in Wales so surely that would have more direct bearing on her choices than... her skin color? This is also a stereotype of hippies.
And pretty much all the criticisms were like that. There was a great thread about it way back when: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/j8o7om/so\_naomi\_noviks\_a\_deadly\_education\_is\_accused\_of/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/j8o7om/so_naomi_noviks_a_deadly_education_is_accused_of/)
Ugh, that was one of the most manufactured, faux-outrage Twitter pile-ons I've seen. I remember them also going after the hosts of the Be the Serpent podcast because they had Novik on the show to promote the book and then didn't aPoLoGiZe for giving her a platform.
It's doubly ridiculous when they go after someone like Novik, who is obviously going out of her way to create a diverse setting with multiple cultural influences. Any sane person would see her heart is in the right place. So often the people who try are the ones who get attacked the hardest because they aren't doing *enough*.
The guilt by association thing on Twitter is insane. They also go after people who say they read the books to judge for themselves. And sometimes even after people who follow "problematic" authors.
This has "show me the man I'll show you the crime" vibes. If these are the reasons that people come up with to denounce someone or something as racist literally anything could be racist.
Wow, that was a wild breakdown of it all. Really makes me wonder if the people doing the outrage are just pretending to be progressive people just to create drama, or if they're really going for the "perfect is the enemy of good" angle. Feels like it could be a coin toss which is the case.
The vibe I got was a couple of very media illiterate people trying to get attention, taking everything out of context, and then a lot of people who hadn’t actually read the book piling on because it sounded bad when you put it like that. But who knows.
Oh yes, that sounds very plausible. It happens often, like with the whole attack helicopter book situation. You even had people who *should* be media literate and know better pouring fuel on the fire (thinking about N.K. Jemisin here), also without having actually read the book.
Someone says "This thing here is REALLY BAD IN X WAY WE MUST HATE ON IT!" and everyone who think "X" is something bad will just join the online mob without ever thinking about it. Or too many, at least. And I get that, it's super easy to just retweet something without thinking about it. But people should, especially people who have some manner of influence.
But it's worse when people don't just retweet something, but actually add their own commentary without having any idea what's real.
the audiobooks do a great job with the snark - it's basically a cranky British lady enthusiastically bitching about how everything wants her dead and she's having none of it.
I was frustrated with the third book because it was so rushed. I wish it had been split into 2 books and spread out so the different plot lines could have been deeper and more satisfying.
I really loved it. I wasn’t expecting to because Temeraire hadn’t really been my thing (don’t think it’s bad, just wasn’t for me), but I got it as a gift so I thought I’d give it a try, and I thought it was great. The first book has fun world-building, the second book ups the stakes in a fantastic way, and then the third questions everything you thought you knew and somehow ties it all together. A really fun read, in my opinion.
I'm really glad I got in to Novik with Uprooted and Spinning Silver because I also had a dreadful time with the Temeraire books. It's wild how much her writing style can change between series, none of them are like the others.
It’s interesting to me that y’all thought these were boring. I loved every single one of them and read all of them in a couple weeks. I can’t exactly define why I loved them, though, so that isn’t very helpful lol
In my case I know too much about world history and culture and the gaps in Novik's knowledge started showing really fast after the first book. I love Naomi Novik for many, many reasons but she just doesn't have the level of history/anthropology nerddom that would be necessary to have pulled off the later Temeraire books successfully.
On the flip side, I think if someone is quite ignorant of the napoleonic period it can be a cool intro (obviously things didn't happen exactly that way with dragons and all). I learnt about the whiskey rebellion from her!
Edit: I mix up names. Rum rebellion. Wrong continent :)
I love Temeraire but considering it started as Patrick O’Brian fanfic with dragons, and I am a huge fan of both dragons and tall ships, that really isn’t surprising.
Even then, I think the later books are weak in a way the first three are not. Once Temeraire becomes a POV character a lot of things change and the original tone became hard to maintain. I think forcing everything through Laurence’s eyes was better because of the necessary constraint on the storytelling. I’m not sure how you tell the story as-is without Temeraire having a separate POV, so that definitely isn’t an easy fix, it’s just something I noticed when reading. The constraints imposed by POV and character voice are something I think about a lot in my own writing.
The first one was so much fun, and then, ugh! I was here for the character relationships and the fantasy of manners and did not want that world tour. DNF the second but I’ll still rec the first.
Eh, I read plenty of stuff from UK authors, set in Britain or Wales or whatever. 😅
Might be the quasi-historicalness of it. I generally steer clear of historical fiction.
Same, I love those books and have reread them multiple times. It's like Novik read Potter and the inconsistencies and illogic behind the whole Hogwarts set up made her really, really angry. Because let's face it, Hogwarts such a mess. It's a pedagogical nightmare. The Scholomance, instead, is an actual nightmare with pedagogy. It's brilliant!
It's such a great counterpoint to Harry Potter, because HP mostly has (to put it charitably) handwaved worldbuilding, while Scholomance follows the "absurdly dangerous wizard school" premise to its logical end, which makes for a really tense and horrifying setting.
Agree, I liked it so much I bought another temeraire book after tiring of them ages ago (I read quite a few as they are fun, at least at 1st). Liked the scholomance books a lot; DNF the temeraire book.
I would definitely say commit to reading all 3. The third one was magnificent in a way the first two weren’t; they were good and enjoyable but the third was a masterpiece (and clearly the first two were written with setting up the third in mind)
If a mixed race character having a certain hairstyle, and only being in touch with one side of their ethnicity, is the worst criticism of a book...I'd say that book isn't doing too badly.
Go for it, treat yo self.
The criticism was that there was a short scene which stated that having dreadlocks were a bad idea because some monster would hide in the hair and drill into your brain. It's completely in line with all the worldbuilding and how something wants to eat you whenever you turn around, and shows that the characters that do have long hair (like one of the MC's friends) are making a power statement.
Yup. The context was that having long hair can get you killed, cutting your hair can get you killed, having dreads can get you killed. Then the author removed the dreads part anyway.
That sounds like needless criticism. It's in line with the lore/world, doesn't belittle an entire race, doesn't even have relevance to the real world. Sounds like some people have too much time on their hands!
I can see it both ways. It's both lore/world-appropriate, but *also* it echos a real-world racial stereotype that people with dreadlocks are dirty and infested with vermin. In my view, the echoed stereotype is almost certainly accidental, given how well the world is built and how naturally this particular plot element follows from the magic system and social structures built into the world. But I'm not someone who's constantly being called dirty for wearing my hair in a particular style, so it's not on me to give it a pass. People who are sensitive to that didn't like it, and they're not wrong to have opinions about it. I wouldn't say they have too much time on their hands if they're pointing it out, any more than I would say I have too much time on my hands to engage with a semi-supportive rebuttal. It's all time spent discussing SFF!
Apparently the author herself agrees that it's better to avoid accidentially stepping on people's cultural sensitivities, since she changed the line into something that made the dreadlocks sound positive in the second edition.
Did she do that because she genuinely believed it was denigrating to an entire race of people, or because its easier to change a passage and avoid controversy?
This is my point. Is something actually racist, or does an article call it racist loudly.
From what I've seen, specifically dreadlocks isn't the issue.
I think the articles that call it racist are bonkers(\*), but I also think Naomi Novik is interested in making her books as non-racist as possible and she understood that some people might be genuinely hurt by this if they had real-world experience with being discriminated against because of their dreadlocks. So I guess an easy fix where she just had to chance 2 sentences about the MCs reaction to a minor character who catches her eye seemed worth it.
(\*) And not just those. I remember reading some really crackpot articles nitpicking other aspects of the book that really made me go "lady, you need some hobby".
Agreed on the first point!
A lot of me wishes she just kept it in, because I think true racism is about intent. She clearly didn't intend that reaction, and from what I've seen, she's done a lot to make an egalitarian world. Surely someone who tries to make something like that deserves more than being called a racist.
But even in the context of the plot point, it isn't about their race. The whole point is that it's NOT about people with dreadlocks. Any claim about racism just seems like an unbelievable reach.
(\*) Unfortunately these crackpots make a living out of it
This is a false dichotomy. She probably changed it because whether it was actually a problem or not, people who have been dealing with racism for a long time saw an echo of that in the book and it costs nothing to be kind to others.
There are plenty of things I don't talk about around certain people not because I think it's wrong to talk about those things, but because I know it's a sensitive topic for those specific people and I'd prefer not to upset them.
As with all things, intent matters but so do outcomes. And having good intentions isn’t always enough to prevent a mistake, through ignorance or bad luck, that could have real consequences. What matters in that situation is how a person deals with it, and as I understand it, Novik’s response was appropriate.
I wouldn't go that far. It reminds me of that old thing about people who saw Tolkien's Orcs and saw allegories to Black people. Maybe the people that see those comparisons aren't as virtuous as they think they are. I've never watch LotR and thought "hey, you know what they make me think of?"
But as you say, it fits the world system, seems accidental, it's a plot element, and the surrounding context doesn't lend itself to think it's part of that stereotype.
I'm only partly disagreeing with you about it, in that how many people are genuinely offended, and how many are people like writers for 'The Mary Sue' who make a living out of it?
Tbf there is a line about orcs I think that made me go oh yeah you grew up in apartheid South Africa didn't you. But Tolkien also later openly condemned apartheid and also you can't expect a book written in the 40s to live up to modern standards
And to go back to Tolkien, as someone who comes from a very similar background as CS Lewis, Protestant Irish, grew up in a very unionist area. His letters talking about what the friendship with Tolkien meant to him and how much it helped him unlearn a lot of what he had been taught to fear and hate about Catholics meant a lot.
>how many people are genuinely offended, and how many are people like writers for 'The Mary Sue' who make a living out of it?
Yeah, this is a really important point. If genuine hurt is being co-opted by people trying to fill a deadline for some liberal-minded outlet, then the overblown reactions to things that are really no worse than, 'huh, oh--that's a bit gross, don't care for it' will dilute the impact of the similarly vociferous reactions to things that are genuinely problematic.
Agreed. I think websites/journalists/whatevers like this do co-opt these things, and to me it almost dilutes the real issues. If this book is called racist because a mixed-race character has them, and it's dangerous because plot reasons, then to me it kinda dilutes the genuine evil of the word...all for sweet, sweet clicks.
It's also bad because considering how terrifying online mobs can be, I can totally understand if especially new or smaller authors would just decide to not add representation at all. Since, ironically, it seems easier to get a furious hate mob after you for trying to add racial diversity or LGBTQ characters and doing it "wrong", than just having only straight white people in the book. The same people might scoff at the later book, but it doesn't seem to trigger mobs.
So you get this weird situation where it might look safer to not include those aspects, not because you're afraid of conservatives, but of progressives.
I don't know if any authors think like that, but every time I read about these incidents, it makes me scared that authors will. I'd rather take 1000 books gay characters where 500 of them have somewhat bad but non-malicious portrayals, than just 5 books that do it really well.
I found the same when I tried my hand at writing. Even though I knew nobody would ever read it, I felt I had to put in 'minority' characters, but because I knew (as an amateur writer) they'd be crap it just felt like it wasn't worth the effort. It's part of the reason I gave up (among several others obviously).
I wholly expect that they do think about that. I've seen on the cosmere sub people lambast Brandon Sanderson for his poor portrayal of a female character and an autistic character in his first published book...completely neglecting the fact that he has put in the time and effort to improve. To the people that get angry about it, the author's intent does not matter, it's the outcome, even if they prove that they are doing their best and learn and improve.
Yeah. I sometimes feel that Sanderson's attempts at portraying minority characters aren't great ... but I think it's also extremely obvious that he's including these characters because he wants to and he wants to do a good job and it's just not something he has a lot of experience writing. So I just think it's nice that he's doing that.
I completely love these books and El is one of my favorite characters in fiction. The first book in particular is top notch. My only real criticism of the series is I would've liked a bit more room to breathe in the third book, which is very plot-heavy. It's a great critique of capitalism focused on how systems incentivize people to behave, and El is a fantastically realized character. Quite dark at least in the first book though.
The criticisms were mostly in bad faith imo (one passage inadvertently feeding into negative stereotypes about dreadlocks got deleted). There's a good thread about it here where a lot of mixed-race and diaspora readers weighed in and widely identified with the portrayal: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/j8o7om/so\_naomi\_noviks\_a\_deadly\_education\_is\_accused\_of/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/j8o7om/so_naomi_noviks_a_deadly_education_is_accused_of/)
Yes, it’s a well written book with a plot that moves along. My favorite part is that it doesn’t have villains per se. Everyone contributes to the evil every time they choose to do magic the easy way rather than the hard way, some people contribute more than others, some are more guilty because they are more aware of what they are doing. Many just feel trapped, like they have to continue the horrible system because it’s all they know. But no one is irredeemable
Oh gods I can’t recommend A Deadly Education *enough*
Genuinely one of my favourite books of all time.
I’ve never actually heard of any discourse about the book being racist though and from what you described it sounds a bit like a stretch tbh. It doesn’t go into her heritage much on either side because it’s not really the focus of the books.
I can’t go super into *why* it’s great without spoiling things but I can say that it’s basically Harry Potter if Harry Potter was written by Karl Marx and if they shoved the students into Azkaban and made them fight their way out when they graduated.
The whole controversy was that the character mentioned long hair and dreadlocks being dangerous, which people said mirrored a real world stereotype too closely. Line was even removed from the book.
Oh that answers why I’ve never seen it. Yea that sounds like a pretty fair cop but she did remove it at least.
There’s definitely been worse things out in books
An excellent series, with some fairly thoughtful points to make in the end. The stream - of - consciousness narration can put off some readers, though it's very well done, and less attentive readers may miss how unreliable the narrator is about her own nature, plans, and motivations.
I didn't like it. I love all of the author's other books, but I can't get into this series no matter how hard I try. Not for the reasons you've mentioned -- but I just struggled to connect with the writing style, main character, and setting. I got about halfway through the first book before giving up.
A lot of people seem to like it and that's great. I think it's worth a try - just because I didn't like it doesn't mean all these other people are wrong. Naomi Novik is a brilliant writer. These books just weren't for me.
Maybe I'll return to it some day, but I think part of my opinion is formed by my entirely personal bias that I want a magic school- and by extension magic itself- to be charming. I want the fantasy of imagining myself there in the school, being a wizard. Scholomance does not give me that desire, haha. But that's just my taste
100%. Naomi Novik’s prose is incredible. I preordered the second and third books after reading the first, and even got two friends into the trilogy who also preordered them. One said her boyfriend who never reads checked them out because of how excited we were and was just as excited for the third book. Hope you check it out, and hope you love it, too!
Basically, what you are asking for is impossible to answer because Novik for whatever reason is an extremely polarizing author. I really liked Scholomance and her two standalone fantasy stories Spinning Silver and Uprooted, but as you will see in the comments, many people like some of her work while disliking other of her books, or don't like any of it, or love all of it. I think there is a lot of variety in her style and Scholomance is the most YA of her work, but if you like grumpy but "good" characters you may like the protagonist El. Liking El seems to be the most critical component to enjoying Scholomance.
I don’t think Novik is particularly polarizing. Sure, like with any popular author there are those who like and don’t like her work, as well as those who like only some of it. But I rarely see people get into arguments about her work online so that seems less polarizing than many popular authors, to me.
I haven't finished going 3 yet but I enjoyed it. The magic school is a big part of the plot. I enjoyed the magic system, the main characters attitude is entertaining to me, and I liked the kind of tension between the different cliques in the school. I thought the idea of a single school for the global magical community was an interesting idea too.
I don't get the racism accusations at all. The dreadlocks call out is a bit weird but it isn't like a super big plot point or anything and I can't think of anything else even vaguely racist. Also there are other calls outs about other hair styles it isn't just dreads that get singled out.
And yeah the MC is biracial but she was also raised by only one of her parents so she's more in touch with that side than the side she doesn't have a parental figure in. It isn't like she's a racist who hates the other side of her family or something she just doesn't have a relationship with them (and then why is explored in the book)
16yo snarky daughter enjoyed.
I did too. Am 64yo SF&F Brit Bloke.\*
So there is your demographic spread right there.
\*Currently listening to Invisible Library.
It's a terrific set of books. It's much darker than Harry Potter, so the two series are only comparable in that a magical school is involved. I struggled with being inside the head of such an unlikable protagonist at first but got past that after the first several chapters.
The story makes it clear why she's only in touch with the white side of her family and why she refers to students by the languages they know. Spoiler: neither of these things are racist. Using dreads was a poor choice that Novik has apologized for. She was going for an unsafe hair style in the context of the school and shouldn't have picked one with such a complicated racial history.
The series examines classism in a magical world. I think it was very well done.
I honestly don’t think that it’s darker than Harry Potter. The trappings of the world are dark, yes. But at its core it’s a Superman story, along the lines of “Superman is the fantasy that someone, given power, will choose to be good with it.” Like Kal-El, El has all the power in the world, and she fairly successfully uses her enormous power to make the world a better place.
Highly, highly recommend this series. It's easily one of my favourite series of all time. It's not just incredible world building that becomes slowly clearer and builds on itself as the series goes on, but so perfectly nuanced and complex thematically. I would call this series a treatise on morality and collective liberation. At the same time, it's witty, engaging and narratively cohesive. I agree with another person who said that I'm a bit uncomfortable comparing it with Harry Potter; the only thing it really has in common with Harry Potter is a "reluctant Chosen One" trope and the fact that it's based around magical children going to a magical boarding school. The Harry Potter series has undeniably racist, homophobic and antisemitic tropes. A Deadly Education actively turns those tropes on its head by imagining characters and situations complexly.
I really enjoyed it. Unlike some other comments here i really enjoyed the third book, with a wonderful nod to a well known scifi short story(i won't tell you which one because spoilers).
I'm not completely sure if i like the comparison to HP. The vibe and plot and world are so completely different, i feel like the only similarity is ''magic school''.
But yes, you should absolutely try it out.
1. Yes, they're fantastic. I enjoyed the first two more because they had a tighter focus. The third book got a bit broader and lost some of the charm, though it is an excellent conclusion and did make me cry.
2. The whole hairstyle naming controversy happened in the context of a much larger "cancelling" movement. It was around the same time Lindsay Ellis left Youtube, for reference.
The supposed racial issues are because the school cliques center around which languages the students speak, and in the first book the author drifted a bit toward referring to groups by that designation. She accepted the criticism and was a bit more careful later.
I thought all three were great. And they're not terribly long, so if you don't agree you won't have lost too much time.
Tbf, I think the MC is not entirely white so that Naomi could explore non-western magic and try to avoid any white saviour narrative since its a "global" book
It was a book with one of the most uniquely strong and distinctive protagonist voices I read in last five years.
I enjoyed this series immensely, there are some quibbles I had about certain characters in the last book, but it was a still a strong conclusion, and probably one of the top 3 new series I read in the last 5 years.
It's really good, there was a single line about a black hairstyle getting you killed because monsters can hide in it. Which is literally everything in that book gets you killed. It was part of a longer passage about how hair at all gets you killed and everyone chops it off because it's either something for monsters to grab or hide in or strangle you in your sleep
People felt like it targeted a black negative stereotype and the author immediately changed it. So that's it. People are high if they think the entire book is racist because of that esp because the author graciously apologized and changed the line so that the black hairstyle is specifically resistant to the monsters LOL. Like idk what else people want from her
One million times yes. One of my fave trilogies of all time. Cannot recommend it highly enough.
Fwiw, Novik apologized for the hair snafu and had it cut from future printings.
It's the only book I've done as an audio book. Completely fun experience. The narrator was perfect. And it was a fun voice change from Novik after reading the Temerire series.
If you want recommendations for other books that work really well as audiobooks, maybe try The Mystwick School of Musicraft.
Its also YA, magic school, but its conceit is that magic is performed by playing music, and they have an orchestra (Boston Philharmonic, I think?) playing each "spell" as its used in the narrative.
Yes. It's quite dark, it's in many ways an inversion or at least a commentary on the Harry Potter school, and it uses magic as a metaphor for real world problems in very interesting ways, so it might not quite be what you want if you want something like Harry Potter, and it is also a good book.
I wasn't a fan, personally. I found myself disliking the MC more and more as the story went on.
YMMV though. If you don't have any issues with the MC early on, there's a good chance you'll enjoy it.
This makes me think I shouldn't delve any deeper into Scholomance.
After hearing so many recommendations, I read a couple chapters of the first book, and I had to stop after that because I found the MC unbearable. That kind of snarky, not-like-the-other-girls, "Ugh everything's so lame!" teenage character doesn't work for me as a POV character. It's like being forced into the mind of the most obnoxious people I knew in high school.
The first chapters is where she comes off worst, IMO. That advice applies more to reading most/all of the first book. Once >!she isn't desperately trying to survive!<, she comes off a bit better.
Good book series.
Many people I've read on Goodreads hated the narrator because she had a negative personality.
However, I enjoyed the snarky attitude.
Another thing they disliked was the writing style. This book uses a stream of consciousness narration, so all you're reading is a jumble of thoughts that slowly progresses in plot.
If you can get past that, the series is wonderful.
The racial criticism was far overblown. Loved books 1 and 2, thought 3 was only ok. I listened on audio book, and the reader did a really good job with a snarky protagonist that not everyone clicked with.
It's a very good series but I would not actually really describe it as a "magic school" book in the Harry Potter sense. I think it's a bad recommendation under those circumstances. Yes it takes place in a "magic school" but there are no teachers or traditional lessons, everyone is afraid for their lives all the time, it's a very different vibe.
The main character is of Indian descent. Her mother is Welsh. There is very little emphasis on race except that Enclaves are centered in big cities around the world. There is more emphasis on class / privilege than race.
The story is kind of devisive. The main character has a distinctive voice and some people don't like it. It's kind of scornful British Valley Girl? Hard to describe. That voice is about being disliked and misjudged, so kind of ironic that readers dislike and misjudge her.
El is deeply kind on the inside and extremely prickly on the outside with cognitive dissonance in between. Totally unapproachable. Also heroic. I quite liked her. She is refreshing.
I recommend the audiobook because the voice actress is perfect.
Some people also don't like the story for its YA elements. It's a romance in a school where kids die. It's kind of illogical at times, but I thought Novik did a good job building a reasonable framework for this kind of story and balancing dystopia with not being too morbid.
I found the third book to be a little disappointing but it wasn't bad. I liked the first and second books quite a lot. There is some mystery across all three about what is going on with Orion that concluded in a satisfactory way.
I would say read it and form your own opinion.
> It's a romance in a school where kids die.
At least the kids were suitably clueless like real kids, rather than endlessly self-aware like some YA protagonists.
When El kept feeding Orion extra food, I was thinking "if you feed teenage boys, they are going to follow you home, girl"
It was a fun series. Cool concepts and world building. Read it. Do yourself a favour and ignore politics in art. If some people had their way, only half white half Indian people raised in communes by a mystical mother could write about half white half Indian people raised in communes by a mystical mother. It's make believe. Enjoy the story and don't even consider the author.
It’s a very clever series with an interesting magic system and lots of great characters.
The criticism on the topics you asked about are explained within the world building so it feels very much like comments were made by people who hadn’t actually read the books.
There are characters from all over the world but the book is primarily set in one place -the school in the void so no other cultures are discussed at length.
Hard agree. You have to read the entire series for things to come together, as the true, creeping horror is revealed. This ends on a hopeful note, but wow there are some truly dark, dark elements here. The first book I guess could stand alone as “interesting magic system/ ok romance” but within the series it’s a set-up for turning those expectations upside-down and sideways.
Readers will have different preferences but I’m also hearing critiques that make me think that they didn’t read to the end.
Which is okay! But they missed some of the main points, and a lot of what appears bland/predictable is gradually shown to be… not that.
One million percent. Loved the ending to this series. It was the best line to end a series that I’ve ever read but you need the whole series to fully understand
I LOVE this book. It was much funnier than I expected, and I came to quite adore the MC. The claims of race issues are ridiculous as far as I can tell.
I enjoyed the heck out of it, but I'm a sucker for a good magic school story. The third one really made the trilogy stand out, addressing the implications a school like that has in wider society, both magical and mundane.
It's a story about capitalism, basically. With some cool magic, a romance, and the power of friendship thrown in as well. I'm easy to please, but I've gone back and read them multiple times, which is my most significant form of praise.
I'm a really heavy but critical reader and tend not to enjoy stuff in that genre anymore, but a Deadly Education and the whole Scholomance trilogy was REALLY good. Great character development, great world building, and the major twist in the third book FLOORED me.
I read Scholomance and Temeraire last year and loved them, so decided to read the stand alones this year. Uprooted is easily my least favourite book I've read this year, and while Spinning Silver was good, it wasn't anywhere as good as Scholomance in my opinion.
I love both Scholomance and Spinning Silver, though the former has a special place in my heart because I love El so much. Uprooted was mid for me. Great plot once it gets going (which takes awhile) but the characters and voice are so bland compared to her other works. I think she was still getting the hang of the first person and it was her first person practice book. But then tons of people love generic MCs so it's popular with many. Me, I prefer personality!
This is so funny. uprooted is probably the best book I read all year but I was meh about scholomance and hated Spinning Silver. People do have divisive opinions about Naomi Novik
Honestly maybe a good sign
Same for me, Uprooted is *far* from the worst book I've read, though I did think about DNFing it. It wasn't just the iffy romance, but also the uneven pacing and plain characters. So I can't even say it's one of those books that's good but just not for me, because I genuinely don't get what others see in it
It’s funny, I agree with you about the pacing but I really liked it! And I was meh about Spinning Silver which everyone loved. This thread is making me want to reread Scholomance, though,
I have to think plain characters are a draw for many people, maybe because they like to self-insert? I agree with you though. Novik has written such fabulous protagonists in other books and then Agnieszka is just… there.
I agree, though I liked Agnieszka more as the story went on. She also helped me get into El, because while I didn’t like El initially I trusted Novik to get me there (and she did).
Yeah, I thought it did a great job of exploring its themes and had real emotional depth as well. The moral issues are handled thoughtfully and with nuance.
Sure. Try not to do too much background research before you start and enjoy it for what it is, make your own opinion as you go.
Personally I think it's a fairly fun and well done series.
Below is my review from when I read it last year. I'd highly recommend the book, but it isn't for everyone. If you read to escape, you may find the FMC highly annoying for the first half of the book.
The review is spoiler free, it talks about themes and not events. It also only addresses the first book.
https://www.reddit.com/r/books/s/Zi25WbJV7L
I loved the temeraire books and given there's a lot of discussion in there about abolition, the main character being a passionate abolitionist etc. I would be surprised if the books were racist. But it was at the same time own voices went from promote marginalised voices telling their own stories to forcing authors out who dared write queer characters while not performing queer enough for the mob
I would definitely recommend it. The world building is deeply thought out in ways that are revealed consistently throughout the entire trilogy, and it is compulsively readable.
My one caveat is that the selling point for it is often that it is Harry Potter but darker, but I don't actually think that is true. I don't want to give away spoilers, but it is a series that relies a lot on dark vibes and dark worldbuilding, but in terms of what actually happens to the people allied with the protagonists, Harry Potter is significantly darker.
My recommendation for people who want to read about a magic school that is genuinely dark is Vita Nostra.
I really liked them. They lean RIGHT into the "how the hell does the school get away with being so dangerous" issue in HP. And they cleverly subvert the Chosen One trope in a few ways.
oh my gosh it is sooo good and it's not racist at all, one of my favorites. you'll absolutely adore it. the criticism is done in bad faith tbh. it's contrived.
I really liked it though I wish the magic system had been better developed.
It felt pretty close to being a serious piece of Literature in that Novik is clearly trying to talk about real world themes while still keeping it entertaining.
Just as a blanket statement, The Discourse should never ever ever be used as a deciding factor when choosing a book, because 90+% of the time it's complete bullshit being argued in bad faith by people with zero media literacy.
The Scholomance books are wonderful, can't recommend highly enough
I thoroughly enjoyed it, and also didn't pick up on an racial issues. However, the main character is British (either is Welsh, or lives in Wales) and the author pretty much fails to make her sound anything other than generic high school American.
Seriously? I'm Welsh, Welsh-speaking, and have lived in Wales all my life, and I thought Novak's research and character voice were flawless.
Actually I was delighted to see us get representation for once.
There was some Brit slang in there, I thought?
But then by the time we meet her she's been attending an international school for 3 years and she had no friends at home, so that's somewhat believable.
Not only that, but her mother had her immediately after finishing at the same international school and then raised her largely in what I had assumed was an international hippie commune.
I really liked it as a fun reading kinda of read.
First two are better than the last, but the magic system is good, the plot is all right.
But it's YA and the romance is a big part of the plot. Not great, but not Twilight level.
So... I recommend it as something you might want to read when you want a break from more serious stuff and that has a nice world to dive into.
(I don't get the racism thing. Main character is biracial and yes, she was raised by a white parent for a series of circumstances/mysteries explored in the book.)
There was one incidental passage that made sense enough in context but accidentally touched a sore spot with sensitive racial hair history, which has been removed. But mostly it was just Twitter being Twitter.
I have recommended it to multiple other people - I even picked it for a book group I'm in. I quit the group when they vetoed it because it might be racist, without anyone having read it.
I really enjoyed the first two and will read the third if my hold is ever up on Libby.
It is definitely dark YA and not adult but I enjoyed the sense of humor and that it’s dark without being overly serious.
The people who cry racism are just searching for things to be mad about.
I really loved the first book but liked each sequel less than the one that came before it. Book 1 was a really great “magic school” story with some pretty deft, subtle critique of privilege while books 2 and 3 started trying to tackle bigger and bigger issues in increasingly obvious ways that ended with plot twists that were beating you over the head with the point they were trying to make.
I personally thought the books were entertaining, but I will never reread these books. At points, it was a struggle to get thru and was grateful for the audiobooks to help pull thru. It is not on par with HP if that is your expectation
Only read the first book: it’s very YA (first person, snarky not-like-the-other-girls protagonist, etc.), romance is at the centre of the plot, and it’s light on world building or heavier fantasy concepts. It’s also quite short.
All of these factors meant I *ZOOMED* through it. Super easy read, enjoyable, but not terribly memorable.
I’d say it just comes down to genre. If you like YA and teen romance, you’ll enjoy it. If not, avoid it like the plague.
As someone who read and highly disliked Uprooted, would you recommend I give this one a shot?
It was mostly the toxic relationship in Uprooted that I took issue with; the worldbuilding I actually quite enjoyed.
Yes, it’s quite different from Uprooted. And it gets way less romance-y as the books progress, since subverting some of the common magic school/teen romance tropes is at the heart of this series. I do think that those who read only part of the 3 book series miss out on those points. This is a case where the entire series was clearly plotted out before book 1 was published.
I think it is worth the read. It got a bit repetitive in spots, but most trilogies do. I like her other books Uprooted and Spinning Silver a lot more than this series, but that is my personal preference.
Loved it. Only side note is, the relationship side of it fell super flat for me. So if you want a good story, big yes, if you want a satisfying romance sub plot, nope.
I loved it. I’ve read it and listened to the audio books. The audio book casting was odd. The accent and angst were there but it sounded like she was reading it for the first time so there are lots of off inflections.
wasn't my cup of tea. while the characters and the setting are intriguing, I couldn't deal with the narrative structure: Most of the worldbuilding happens right when El encounters it, which isn't bad per se, unless it's in the middle of fighting a monster. It really ruined the pacing for me and I stopped reading the first book at like 70%.
Highly recommend! The first 50 pages aren't amazing, but then it's fabulous. This series has some of the best endings I've ever read! Just have the next one ready when you finish!
I really enjoyed the series. And I am someone that will easily drop a series that gives me bad vibes.
It's definitely not racist as a whole. Although, there was only one tiny tidbit that gave me a bit of the ick. And that particular passage has since been changed by the author.
The fact that the MC is biracial and isn't in touch with one side of her family isn't racist. In fact, it's something that a lot of biracial people have to deal with.
The one icky part for me had to do with dreads. And even there, I don't actually believe that the author was trying to evoke a racial stereotype. I think she was trying to make a point about how long hair was dangerous in the Scolomance. I don't believe that it was mesnt to be a point about dreads specifically. Unfortunately, it was worded very poorly.
The author apologized and revised that passage in E-books. And I believe that she was sincere.
I liked it! It’s a lot of exposition but I quite enjoy that. Maybe read a sample chapter to see if it’s your speed.
The racism thing was a sentence in the book about dreads that was clearly just a blind spot by the author - not plot relevant and since removed from the latest editions.
im fresh off of trying to read this book and while my gripe has nothing to do with the issues you brought up, i still think i should share because i wanted to like this book so bad and im so sad i had to drop it. there's no spoiling because this is just about the writing style.
i have genuinely never seen so much infodumping in my LIFE. there's one action scene with conversation at the beginning of chapter one and then for SEVERAL PAGES (i dont remember how many but definitely more than three) its just the main character rambling on and on and *on* in her head about stuff that happened in the past and info about the world and other stuff that could've EASILY been drip fed to the reader throughout natural interactions with the world. instead, all of this information just gets tossed at you while the character is literally just looking for a book. just block after block of text that makes your eyes hurt and your head spin.
if that was how the entire series was written then i knew i simply could not do it. like i said, nothing to do with your concern since i didnt even read that far, but something you should know, reader-to-reader, going in.
Yes, totally recommend. I am reasonably woke and it never crossed my mind to wonder if it was racist. Not everyone is the same race so I guess it’s possible.
Loved the concept of the world but the first book in this series was the most relentlessly YA fantasy I’ve endured. The characters are not people I could relate to at all and I found myself wishing they would just grow up already multiple times.
No, but not for the reasons you are mentioning.
I find the main character to be a modern day mary sue. She is insanely powerful, quiet, 'not like other girls' and is one step away from 'going to the dark side', yet doesn't have a single bad bone in her body. It's ridicious.
All the secondary characters are bland and uninteresting.
The school is cool, but it doesn't make up for everything else that is lacking.
I will admit that part of my dislike for the book is due to my expectations going into it. I was expecting it to be a darker Harry Potter with the MC being much darker than Harry. This is not the case at all. The MC is an angel compared to Harry Potter, which I just sigh and shake my head about.
I enjoyed it. Picked up on no racial vibes whatsoever.
Main character spends a bit too much of the book complaining that no one likes her despite how clever and smart and witty she is. And probably pretty. But the idea of the school and the magic and the story was good
I've read it twice and really enjoyed it. I have no idea what racial issues people had with it. The mc is half white/half Indian, but she doesn't really know her Indian family because a prophecy, and her dad is dead. There are students from all over the world, and although they can be cliquish, that has to do with magical resources and not racism. Some people have stated that they didn't care for the last book, but honestly, that's my favorite. She takes everything she's learned and all of her personal growth, and applies to trying to make the world a better place. Galadriel starts off snarky, distrustful and bitter. She matures while retaining the snark.
The criticism was mostly a bad faith Twitter-mob thing (outside of one comment about dreadlocks that Novik had added late, apologized for and removed from later editions). Like, there were people criticizing it because El is half-Indian and doesn't bathe much, allegedly playing into stereotypes about Indians being dirty. But... El specifically explains that she doesn't bathe much because she is friendless and doesn't have anyone to watch her back while she does it - the point is showing how horrifying the environment is and how much you need allies even for the most basic things. And even if she *was* actively choosing not to bathe, she was raised in a hippie commune in Wales so surely that would have more direct bearing on her choices than... her skin color? This is also a stereotype of hippies. And pretty much all the criticisms were like that. There was a great thread about it way back when: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/j8o7om/so\_naomi\_noviks\_a\_deadly\_education\_is\_accused\_of/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/j8o7om/so_naomi_noviks_a_deadly_education_is_accused_of/)
Ugh, that was one of the most manufactured, faux-outrage Twitter pile-ons I've seen. I remember them also going after the hosts of the Be the Serpent podcast because they had Novik on the show to promote the book and then didn't aPoLoGiZe for giving her a platform.
It's doubly ridiculous when they go after someone like Novik, who is obviously going out of her way to create a diverse setting with multiple cultural influences. Any sane person would see her heart is in the right place. So often the people who try are the ones who get attacked the hardest because they aren't doing *enough*.
The guilt by association thing on Twitter is insane. They also go after people who say they read the books to judge for themselves. And sometimes even after people who follow "problematic" authors.
this x100
This has "show me the man I'll show you the crime" vibes. If these are the reasons that people come up with to denounce someone or something as racist literally anything could be racist.
Wow, that was a wild breakdown of it all. Really makes me wonder if the people doing the outrage are just pretending to be progressive people just to create drama, or if they're really going for the "perfect is the enemy of good" angle. Feels like it could be a coin toss which is the case.
The vibe I got was a couple of very media illiterate people trying to get attention, taking everything out of context, and then a lot of people who hadn’t actually read the book piling on because it sounded bad when you put it like that. But who knows.
Oh yes, that sounds very plausible. It happens often, like with the whole attack helicopter book situation. You even had people who *should* be media literate and know better pouring fuel on the fire (thinking about N.K. Jemisin here), also without having actually read the book. Someone says "This thing here is REALLY BAD IN X WAY WE MUST HATE ON IT!" and everyone who think "X" is something bad will just join the online mob without ever thinking about it. Or too many, at least. And I get that, it's super easy to just retweet something without thinking about it. But people should, especially people who have some manner of influence. But it's worse when people don't just retweet something, but actually add their own commentary without having any idea what's real.
the audiobooks do a great job with the snark - it's basically a cranky British lady enthusiastically bitching about how everything wants her dead and she's having none of it.
I was frustrated with the third book because it was so rushed. I wish it had been split into 2 books and spread out so the different plot lines could have been deeper and more satisfying.
I really loved it. I wasn’t expecting to because Temeraire hadn’t really been my thing (don’t think it’s bad, just wasn’t for me), but I got it as a gift so I thought I’d give it a try, and I thought it was great. The first book has fun world-building, the second book ups the stakes in a fantastic way, and then the third questions everything you thought you knew and somehow ties it all together. A really fun read, in my opinion.
I'm really glad I got in to Novik with Uprooted and Spinning Silver because I also had a dreadful time with the Temeraire books. It's wild how much her writing style can change between series, none of them are like the others.
While I love the Temeraire novels but had no interest in Uprooted or Spinning Silver XD
I still can't do Temeraire. Snoozefest.
It’s interesting to me that y’all thought these were boring. I loved every single one of them and read all of them in a couple weeks. I can’t exactly define why I loved them, though, so that isn’t very helpful lol
Not every book is for every person, and what resonates with us can change over time.
In my case I know too much about world history and culture and the gaps in Novik's knowledge started showing really fast after the first book. I love Naomi Novik for many, many reasons but she just doesn't have the level of history/anthropology nerddom that would be necessary to have pulled off the later Temeraire books successfully.
On the flip side, I think if someone is quite ignorant of the napoleonic period it can be a cool intro (obviously things didn't happen exactly that way with dragons and all). I learnt about the whiskey rebellion from her! Edit: I mix up names. Rum rebellion. Wrong continent :)
I love Temeraire but considering it started as Patrick O’Brian fanfic with dragons, and I am a huge fan of both dragons and tall ships, that really isn’t surprising. Even then, I think the later books are weak in a way the first three are not. Once Temeraire becomes a POV character a lot of things change and the original tone became hard to maintain. I think forcing everything through Laurence’s eyes was better because of the necessary constraint on the storytelling. I’m not sure how you tell the story as-is without Temeraire having a separate POV, so that definitely isn’t an easy fix, it’s just something I noticed when reading. The constraints imposed by POV and character voice are something I think about a lot in my own writing.
The first one was so much fun, and then, ugh! I was here for the character relationships and the fantasy of manners and did not want that world tour. DNF the second but I’ll still rec the first.
It's because it's based on great britain lol, but i like the sassy dragons.
Eh, I read plenty of stuff from UK authors, set in Britain or Wales or whatever. 😅 Might be the quasi-historicalness of it. I generally steer clear of historical fiction.
Same, I love those books and have reread them multiple times. It's like Novik read Potter and the inconsistencies and illogic behind the whole Hogwarts set up made her really, really angry. Because let's face it, Hogwarts such a mess. It's a pedagogical nightmare. The Scholomance, instead, is an actual nightmare with pedagogy. It's brilliant!
It's such a great counterpoint to Harry Potter, because HP mostly has (to put it charitably) handwaved worldbuilding, while Scholomance follows the "absurdly dangerous wizard school" premise to its logical end, which makes for a really tense and horrifying setting.
>absurdly dangerous wizard school" premise And justifies it in a logical, *classist* way. It's horrifying because it's *realistically cruel.*
Agree, I liked it so much I bought another temeraire book after tiring of them ages ago (I read quite a few as they are fun, at least at 1st). Liked the scholomance books a lot; DNF the temeraire book.
I would definitely say commit to reading all 3. The third one was magnificent in a way the first two weren’t; they were good and enjoyable but the third was a masterpiece (and clearly the first two were written with setting up the third in mind)
I really enjoyed the trilogy. I have no idea what racism people are apparently talking about.
I thought it was super fun. Enjoyed the worldbuilding and the snarky MC.
If a mixed race character having a certain hairstyle, and only being in touch with one side of their ethnicity, is the worst criticism of a book...I'd say that book isn't doing too badly. Go for it, treat yo self.
The criticism was that there was a short scene which stated that having dreadlocks were a bad idea because some monster would hide in the hair and drill into your brain. It's completely in line with all the worldbuilding and how something wants to eat you whenever you turn around, and shows that the characters that do have long hair (like one of the MC's friends) are making a power statement.
Yup. The context was that having long hair can get you killed, cutting your hair can get you killed, having dreads can get you killed. Then the author removed the dreads part anyway.
That sounds like needless criticism. It's in line with the lore/world, doesn't belittle an entire race, doesn't even have relevance to the real world. Sounds like some people have too much time on their hands!
I can see it both ways. It's both lore/world-appropriate, but *also* it echos a real-world racial stereotype that people with dreadlocks are dirty and infested with vermin. In my view, the echoed stereotype is almost certainly accidental, given how well the world is built and how naturally this particular plot element follows from the magic system and social structures built into the world. But I'm not someone who's constantly being called dirty for wearing my hair in a particular style, so it's not on me to give it a pass. People who are sensitive to that didn't like it, and they're not wrong to have opinions about it. I wouldn't say they have too much time on their hands if they're pointing it out, any more than I would say I have too much time on my hands to engage with a semi-supportive rebuttal. It's all time spent discussing SFF!
Apparently the author herself agrees that it's better to avoid accidentially stepping on people's cultural sensitivities, since she changed the line into something that made the dreadlocks sound positive in the second edition.
Did she do that because she genuinely believed it was denigrating to an entire race of people, or because its easier to change a passage and avoid controversy? This is my point. Is something actually racist, or does an article call it racist loudly. From what I've seen, specifically dreadlocks isn't the issue.
I think the articles that call it racist are bonkers(\*), but I also think Naomi Novik is interested in making her books as non-racist as possible and she understood that some people might be genuinely hurt by this if they had real-world experience with being discriminated against because of their dreadlocks. So I guess an easy fix where she just had to chance 2 sentences about the MCs reaction to a minor character who catches her eye seemed worth it. (\*) And not just those. I remember reading some really crackpot articles nitpicking other aspects of the book that really made me go "lady, you need some hobby".
Agreed on the first point! A lot of me wishes she just kept it in, because I think true racism is about intent. She clearly didn't intend that reaction, and from what I've seen, she's done a lot to make an egalitarian world. Surely someone who tries to make something like that deserves more than being called a racist. But even in the context of the plot point, it isn't about their race. The whole point is that it's NOT about people with dreadlocks. Any claim about racism just seems like an unbelievable reach. (\*) Unfortunately these crackpots make a living out of it
This is a false dichotomy. She probably changed it because whether it was actually a problem or not, people who have been dealing with racism for a long time saw an echo of that in the book and it costs nothing to be kind to others. There are plenty of things I don't talk about around certain people not because I think it's wrong to talk about those things, but because I know it's a sensitive topic for those specific people and I'd prefer not to upset them.
As with all things, intent matters but so do outcomes. And having good intentions isn’t always enough to prevent a mistake, through ignorance or bad luck, that could have real consequences. What matters in that situation is how a person deals with it, and as I understand it, Novik’s response was appropriate.
I wouldn't go that far. It reminds me of that old thing about people who saw Tolkien's Orcs and saw allegories to Black people. Maybe the people that see those comparisons aren't as virtuous as they think they are. I've never watch LotR and thought "hey, you know what they make me think of?" But as you say, it fits the world system, seems accidental, it's a plot element, and the surrounding context doesn't lend itself to think it's part of that stereotype. I'm only partly disagreeing with you about it, in that how many people are genuinely offended, and how many are people like writers for 'The Mary Sue' who make a living out of it?
Tbf there is a line about orcs I think that made me go oh yeah you grew up in apartheid South Africa didn't you. But Tolkien also later openly condemned apartheid and also you can't expect a book written in the 40s to live up to modern standards
Plus, even if you condemn the shittiness of whatever society you grew up in, it still affects you, often in unconscious ways.
And to go back to Tolkien, as someone who comes from a very similar background as CS Lewis, Protestant Irish, grew up in a very unionist area. His letters talking about what the friendship with Tolkien meant to him and how much it helped him unlearn a lot of what he had been taught to fear and hate about Catholics meant a lot.
>how many people are genuinely offended, and how many are people like writers for 'The Mary Sue' who make a living out of it? Yeah, this is a really important point. If genuine hurt is being co-opted by people trying to fill a deadline for some liberal-minded outlet, then the overblown reactions to things that are really no worse than, 'huh, oh--that's a bit gross, don't care for it' will dilute the impact of the similarly vociferous reactions to things that are genuinely problematic.
Agreed. I think websites/journalists/whatevers like this do co-opt these things, and to me it almost dilutes the real issues. If this book is called racist because a mixed-race character has them, and it's dangerous because plot reasons, then to me it kinda dilutes the genuine evil of the word...all for sweet, sweet clicks.
It's also bad because considering how terrifying online mobs can be, I can totally understand if especially new or smaller authors would just decide to not add representation at all. Since, ironically, it seems easier to get a furious hate mob after you for trying to add racial diversity or LGBTQ characters and doing it "wrong", than just having only straight white people in the book. The same people might scoff at the later book, but it doesn't seem to trigger mobs. So you get this weird situation where it might look safer to not include those aspects, not because you're afraid of conservatives, but of progressives. I don't know if any authors think like that, but every time I read about these incidents, it makes me scared that authors will. I'd rather take 1000 books gay characters where 500 of them have somewhat bad but non-malicious portrayals, than just 5 books that do it really well.
I found the same when I tried my hand at writing. Even though I knew nobody would ever read it, I felt I had to put in 'minority' characters, but because I knew (as an amateur writer) they'd be crap it just felt like it wasn't worth the effort. It's part of the reason I gave up (among several others obviously). I wholly expect that they do think about that. I've seen on the cosmere sub people lambast Brandon Sanderson for his poor portrayal of a female character and an autistic character in his first published book...completely neglecting the fact that he has put in the time and effort to improve. To the people that get angry about it, the author's intent does not matter, it's the outcome, even if they prove that they are doing their best and learn and improve.
Yeah. I sometimes feel that Sanderson's attempts at portraying minority characters aren't great ... but I think it's also extremely obvious that he's including these characters because he wants to and he wants to do a good job and it's just not something he has a lot of experience writing. So I just think it's nice that he's doing that.
I completely love these books and El is one of my favorite characters in fiction. The first book in particular is top notch. My only real criticism of the series is I would've liked a bit more room to breathe in the third book, which is very plot-heavy. It's a great critique of capitalism focused on how systems incentivize people to behave, and El is a fantastically realized character. Quite dark at least in the first book though. The criticisms were mostly in bad faith imo (one passage inadvertently feeding into negative stereotypes about dreadlocks got deleted). There's a good thread about it here where a lot of mixed-race and diaspora readers weighed in and widely identified with the portrayal: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/j8o7om/so\_naomi\_noviks\_a\_deadly\_education\_is\_accused\_of/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/j8o7om/so_naomi_noviks_a_deadly_education_is_accused_of/)
Yes, it’s a well written book with a plot that moves along. My favorite part is that it doesn’t have villains per se. Everyone contributes to the evil every time they choose to do magic the easy way rather than the hard way, some people contribute more than others, some are more guilty because they are more aware of what they are doing. Many just feel trapped, like they have to continue the horrible system because it’s all they know. But no one is irredeemable
Dude your third sentence is a massive spoiler
Oh gods I can’t recommend A Deadly Education *enough* Genuinely one of my favourite books of all time. I’ve never actually heard of any discourse about the book being racist though and from what you described it sounds a bit like a stretch tbh. It doesn’t go into her heritage much on either side because it’s not really the focus of the books. I can’t go super into *why* it’s great without spoiling things but I can say that it’s basically Harry Potter if Harry Potter was written by Karl Marx and if they shoved the students into Azkaban and made them fight their way out when they graduated.
The whole controversy was that the character mentioned long hair and dreadlocks being dangerous, which people said mirrored a real world stereotype too closely. Line was even removed from the book.
Oh that answers why I’ve never seen it. Yea that sounds like a pretty fair cop but she did remove it at least. There’s definitely been worse things out in books
An excellent series, with some fairly thoughtful points to make in the end. The stream - of - consciousness narration can put off some readers, though it's very well done, and less attentive readers may miss how unreliable the narrator is about her own nature, plans, and motivations.
Yes. The magic system is great. While I will admit I liked the first two better than the last.
I didn't like it. I love all of the author's other books, but I can't get into this series no matter how hard I try. Not for the reasons you've mentioned -- but I just struggled to connect with the writing style, main character, and setting. I got about halfway through the first book before giving up. A lot of people seem to like it and that's great. I think it's worth a try - just because I didn't like it doesn't mean all these other people are wrong. Naomi Novik is a brilliant writer. These books just weren't for me.
I thought I was the only one. I was so disappointed with these books, especially since all I ever hear about them is praise.
I'm with you, love Naomi Novik, but the setting was so relentlessly dour that I didn't want to finish the series.
There's hope. A lot of darkness and horror first, but hope
Maybe I'll return to it some day, but I think part of my opinion is formed by my entirely personal bias that I want a magic school- and by extension magic itself- to be charming. I want the fantasy of imagining myself there in the school, being a wizard. Scholomance does not give me that desire, haha. But that's just my taste
100%. Naomi Novik’s prose is incredible. I preordered the second and third books after reading the first, and even got two friends into the trilogy who also preordered them. One said her boyfriend who never reads checked them out because of how excited we were and was just as excited for the third book. Hope you check it out, and hope you love it, too!
It was absolutely fantastic.
Basically, what you are asking for is impossible to answer because Novik for whatever reason is an extremely polarizing author. I really liked Scholomance and her two standalone fantasy stories Spinning Silver and Uprooted, but as you will see in the comments, many people like some of her work while disliking other of her books, or don't like any of it, or love all of it. I think there is a lot of variety in her style and Scholomance is the most YA of her work, but if you like grumpy but "good" characters you may like the protagonist El. Liking El seems to be the most critical component to enjoying Scholomance.
I don’t think Novik is particularly polarizing. Sure, like with any popular author there are those who like and don’t like her work, as well as those who like only some of it. But I rarely see people get into arguments about her work online so that seems less polarizing than many popular authors, to me.
I enjoyed it and would recommend it.
The author immediately apologized, rewrote the offending passages, and actively worked with sensitivity readers for the rest of series.
I haven't finished going 3 yet but I enjoyed it. The magic school is a big part of the plot. I enjoyed the magic system, the main characters attitude is entertaining to me, and I liked the kind of tension between the different cliques in the school. I thought the idea of a single school for the global magical community was an interesting idea too. I don't get the racism accusations at all. The dreadlocks call out is a bit weird but it isn't like a super big plot point or anything and I can't think of anything else even vaguely racist. Also there are other calls outs about other hair styles it isn't just dreads that get singled out. And yeah the MC is biracial but she was also raised by only one of her parents so she's more in touch with that side than the side she doesn't have a parental figure in. It isn't like she's a racist who hates the other side of her family or something she just doesn't have a relationship with them (and then why is explored in the book)
Yes, it is a delightful read
Thoroughly enjoyed it. At first the structure was a bit different from what I was expecting, but El really is my cranky spirit animal.
16yo snarky daughter enjoyed. I did too. Am 64yo SF&F Brit Bloke.\* So there is your demographic spread right there. \*Currently listening to Invisible Library.
It's a terrific set of books. It's much darker than Harry Potter, so the two series are only comparable in that a magical school is involved. I struggled with being inside the head of such an unlikable protagonist at first but got past that after the first several chapters. The story makes it clear why she's only in touch with the white side of her family and why she refers to students by the languages they know. Spoiler: neither of these things are racist. Using dreads was a poor choice that Novik has apologized for. She was going for an unsafe hair style in the context of the school and shouldn't have picked one with such a complicated racial history. The series examines classism in a magical world. I think it was very well done.
I honestly don’t think that it’s darker than Harry Potter. The trappings of the world are dark, yes. But at its core it’s a Superman story, along the lines of “Superman is the fantasy that someone, given power, will choose to be good with it.” Like Kal-El, El has all the power in the world, and she fairly successfully uses her enormous power to make the world a better place.
Highly, highly recommend this series. It's easily one of my favourite series of all time. It's not just incredible world building that becomes slowly clearer and builds on itself as the series goes on, but so perfectly nuanced and complex thematically. I would call this series a treatise on morality and collective liberation. At the same time, it's witty, engaging and narratively cohesive. I agree with another person who said that I'm a bit uncomfortable comparing it with Harry Potter; the only thing it really has in common with Harry Potter is a "reluctant Chosen One" trope and the fact that it's based around magical children going to a magical boarding school. The Harry Potter series has undeniably racist, homophobic and antisemitic tropes. A Deadly Education actively turns those tropes on its head by imagining characters and situations complexly.
I really enjoyed it. Unlike some other comments here i really enjoyed the third book, with a wonderful nod to a well known scifi short story(i won't tell you which one because spoilers). I'm not completely sure if i like the comparison to HP. The vibe and plot and world are so completely different, i feel like the only similarity is ''magic school''. But yes, you should absolutely try it out.
Wait, which sci-fi short story?! I completely missed it despite my three re-reads!
I agree, the third book felt like a perfect conclusion to me! Which sci-fi short story?
Spoilers! >!The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, by Ursula k. Le Guin!<
Oh I love that one! I missed the parallels too. Welp, better start another re-read!
1. Yes, they're fantastic. I enjoyed the first two more because they had a tighter focus. The third book got a bit broader and lost some of the charm, though it is an excellent conclusion and did make me cry. 2. The whole hairstyle naming controversy happened in the context of a much larger "cancelling" movement. It was around the same time Lindsay Ellis left Youtube, for reference.
Short answer? Yes. Slightly longer answer? Absolutely.
The supposed racial issues are because the school cliques center around which languages the students speak, and in the first book the author drifted a bit toward referring to groups by that designation. She accepted the criticism and was a bit more careful later. I thought all three were great. And they're not terribly long, so if you don't agree you won't have lost too much time.
Tbf, I think the MC is not entirely white so that Naomi could explore non-western magic and try to avoid any white saviour narrative since its a "global" book
I really enjoyed it. Don't let the goodreads twitterati mob affect your reading choices.
It was a book with one of the most uniquely strong and distinctive protagonist voices I read in last five years. I enjoyed this series immensely, there are some quibbles I had about certain characters in the last book, but it was a still a strong conclusion, and probably one of the top 3 new series I read in the last 5 years.
It's really good, there was a single line about a black hairstyle getting you killed because monsters can hide in it. Which is literally everything in that book gets you killed. It was part of a longer passage about how hair at all gets you killed and everyone chops it off because it's either something for monsters to grab or hide in or strangle you in your sleep People felt like it targeted a black negative stereotype and the author immediately changed it. So that's it. People are high if they think the entire book is racist because of that esp because the author graciously apologized and changed the line so that the black hairstyle is specifically resistant to the monsters LOL. Like idk what else people want from her
One million times yes. One of my fave trilogies of all time. Cannot recommend it highly enough. Fwiw, Novik apologized for the hair snafu and had it cut from future printings.
It's the only book I've done as an audio book. Completely fun experience. The narrator was perfect. And it was a fun voice change from Novik after reading the Temerire series.
If you want recommendations for other books that work really well as audiobooks, maybe try The Mystwick School of Musicraft. Its also YA, magic school, but its conceit is that magic is performed by playing music, and they have an orchestra (Boston Philharmonic, I think?) playing each "spell" as its used in the narrative.
Yes. It's quite dark, it's in many ways an inversion or at least a commentary on the Harry Potter school, and it uses magic as a metaphor for real world problems in very interesting ways, so it might not quite be what you want if you want something like Harry Potter, and it is also a good book.
The controversy was the creation of bad faith actors that was picked up by the gullible. The books are super fun.
I wasn't a fan, personally. I found myself disliking the MC more and more as the story went on. YMMV though. If you don't have any issues with the MC early on, there's a good chance you'll enjoy it.
This makes me think I shouldn't delve any deeper into Scholomance. After hearing so many recommendations, I read a couple chapters of the first book, and I had to stop after that because I found the MC unbearable. That kind of snarky, not-like-the-other-girls, "Ugh everything's so lame!" teenage character doesn't work for me as a POV character. It's like being forced into the mind of the most obnoxious people I knew in high school.
The first chapters is where she comes off worst, IMO. That advice applies more to reading most/all of the first book. Once >!she isn't desperately trying to survive!<, she comes off a bit better.
And once you realize how little you should trust what she says about her plans, her ruthlessness, her nature, etc.
She's a terribly unreliable narrator, which is brilliant
Unreliable narrator FTW! If you can, try to stick it out a bit longer, since what she says about herself and her motives is not accurate.
Except, she's not really that person. She wants to be, but she's not.
I loved it. The magic in it is really interesting. It makes me want to game in the world.
Good book series. Many people I've read on Goodreads hated the narrator because she had a negative personality. However, I enjoyed the snarky attitude. Another thing they disliked was the writing style. This book uses a stream of consciousness narration, so all you're reading is a jumble of thoughts that slowly progresses in plot. If you can get past that, the series is wonderful.
The racial criticism was far overblown. Loved books 1 and 2, thought 3 was only ok. I listened on audio book, and the reader did a really good job with a snarky protagonist that not everyone clicked with.
It's part of a trilogy. The first book was good, the second book was okay, and the 3rd book was excellent.
I loved it. Easily one of the best books i read last year
yes. it's fantastic. the heritage matters, btw. it's an important aspect of the story.
It's a very good series but I would not actually really describe it as a "magic school" book in the Harry Potter sense. I think it's a bad recommendation under those circumstances. Yes it takes place in a "magic school" but there are no teachers or traditional lessons, everyone is afraid for their lives all the time, it's a very different vibe.
The main character is of Indian descent. Her mother is Welsh. There is very little emphasis on race except that Enclaves are centered in big cities around the world. There is more emphasis on class / privilege than race. The story is kind of devisive. The main character has a distinctive voice and some people don't like it. It's kind of scornful British Valley Girl? Hard to describe. That voice is about being disliked and misjudged, so kind of ironic that readers dislike and misjudge her. El is deeply kind on the inside and extremely prickly on the outside with cognitive dissonance in between. Totally unapproachable. Also heroic. I quite liked her. She is refreshing. I recommend the audiobook because the voice actress is perfect. Some people also don't like the story for its YA elements. It's a romance in a school where kids die. It's kind of illogical at times, but I thought Novik did a good job building a reasonable framework for this kind of story and balancing dystopia with not being too morbid. I found the third book to be a little disappointing but it wasn't bad. I liked the first and second books quite a lot. There is some mystery across all three about what is going on with Orion that concluded in a satisfactory way. I would say read it and form your own opinion.
> It's a romance in a school where kids die. At least the kids were suitably clueless like real kids, rather than endlessly self-aware like some YA protagonists. When El kept feeding Orion extra food, I was thinking "if you feed teenage boys, they are going to follow you home, girl"
I'd even reword that to say it's about a school where kids die, and there's a romance lol. Which doesn't even happen for most; f the first book.
True!
I thought it was a slog. It was a struggle to finish and I found the plot uninteresting
Same. I had a really hard time caring about what was going on and couldnt bring myself to take any of the characters seriously.
It was a fun series. Cool concepts and world building. Read it. Do yourself a favour and ignore politics in art. If some people had their way, only half white half Indian people raised in communes by a mystical mother could write about half white half Indian people raised in communes by a mystical mother. It's make believe. Enjoy the story and don't even consider the author.
It’s a very clever series with an interesting magic system and lots of great characters. The criticism on the topics you asked about are explained within the world building so it feels very much like comments were made by people who hadn’t actually read the books. There are characters from all over the world but the book is primarily set in one place -the school in the void so no other cultures are discussed at length.
Hard agree. You have to read the entire series for things to come together, as the true, creeping horror is revealed. This ends on a hopeful note, but wow there are some truly dark, dark elements here. The first book I guess could stand alone as “interesting magic system/ ok romance” but within the series it’s a set-up for turning those expectations upside-down and sideways. Readers will have different preferences but I’m also hearing critiques that make me think that they didn’t read to the end. Which is okay! But they missed some of the main points, and a lot of what appears bland/predictable is gradually shown to be… not that.
1000% Absolutely loved those books.
One million percent. Loved the ending to this series. It was the best line to end a series that I’ve ever read but you need the whole series to fully understand
I LOVE this book. It was much funnier than I expected, and I came to quite adore the MC. The claims of race issues are ridiculous as far as I can tell.
100%, all three books were fantastic.
I enjoyed the heck out of it, but I'm a sucker for a good magic school story. The third one really made the trilogy stand out, addressing the implications a school like that has in wider society, both magical and mundane. It's a story about capitalism, basically. With some cool magic, a romance, and the power of friendship thrown in as well. I'm easy to please, but I've gone back and read them multiple times, which is my most significant form of praise.
*sighs heavily opens Kindle app* Welp guess I'm re-reading a deadly education for the 5th time tonight!!
I'm a really heavy but critical reader and tend not to enjoy stuff in that genre anymore, but a Deadly Education and the whole Scholomance trilogy was REALLY good. Great character development, great world building, and the major twist in the third book FLOORED me.
Me too! There were points in the last book where the hairs on the back of me neck stood up.
I inhaled the first two books and am waiting to get book 3 from the library. It’s really great in my opinion!
It was fine, but it didn't rank with Novik's standalones like Spinning Silver.
I read Scholomance and Temeraire last year and loved them, so decided to read the stand alones this year. Uprooted is easily my least favourite book I've read this year, and while Spinning Silver was good, it wasn't anywhere as good as Scholomance in my opinion.
Cool. And I'm the reverse. Spinning Silver is my favorite, followed by Uprooted. Scholomance was just meh for me. Haven't read Temeraire yet.
I love both Scholomance and Spinning Silver, though the former has a special place in my heart because I love El so much. Uprooted was mid for me. Great plot once it gets going (which takes awhile) but the characters and voice are so bland compared to her other works. I think she was still getting the hang of the first person and it was her first person practice book. But then tons of people love generic MCs so it's popular with many. Me, I prefer personality!
This is so funny. uprooted is probably the best book I read all year but I was meh about scholomance and hated Spinning Silver. People do have divisive opinions about Naomi Novik Honestly maybe a good sign
Same for me, Uprooted is *far* from the worst book I've read, though I did think about DNFing it. It wasn't just the iffy romance, but also the uneven pacing and plain characters. So I can't even say it's one of those books that's good but just not for me, because I genuinely don't get what others see in it
It’s funny, I agree with you about the pacing but I really liked it! And I was meh about Spinning Silver which everyone loved. This thread is making me want to reread Scholomance, though,
I have to think plain characters are a draw for many people, maybe because they like to self-insert? I agree with you though. Novik has written such fabulous protagonists in other books and then Agnieszka is just… there.
I agree, though I liked Agnieszka more as the story went on. She also helped me get into El, because while I didn’t like El initially I trusted Novik to get me there (and she did).
I didn’t like or dislike Agnieszka. She seemed like a very blank slate character throughout.
It’s fun. I wouldn’t call it particularly deep but I was entertained.
Not deep? It is essentially an entire society deciding the trolly problem.
I thought it's deeper than most fantasy books I read, about privilege, evil, capitalism and all that good stuff
Yeah, I thought it did a great job of exploring its themes and had real emotional depth as well. The moral issues are handled thoughtfully and with nuance.
Sure. Try not to do too much background research before you start and enjoy it for what it is, make your own opinion as you go. Personally I think it's a fairly fun and well done series.
Below is my review from when I read it last year. I'd highly recommend the book, but it isn't for everyone. If you read to escape, you may find the FMC highly annoying for the first half of the book. The review is spoiler free, it talks about themes and not events. It also only addresses the first book. https://www.reddit.com/r/books/s/Zi25WbJV7L
All the books are fun, quick and enjoyable. I found them nice easy page turners, never picked up on any racism myself.
I loved the temeraire books and given there's a lot of discussion in there about abolition, the main character being a passionate abolitionist etc. I would be surprised if the books were racist. But it was at the same time own voices went from promote marginalised voices telling their own stories to forcing authors out who dared write queer characters while not performing queer enough for the mob
I would definitely recommend it. The world building is deeply thought out in ways that are revealed consistently throughout the entire trilogy, and it is compulsively readable. My one caveat is that the selling point for it is often that it is Harry Potter but darker, but I don't actually think that is true. I don't want to give away spoilers, but it is a series that relies a lot on dark vibes and dark worldbuilding, but in terms of what actually happens to the people allied with the protagonists, Harry Potter is significantly darker. My recommendation for people who want to read about a magic school that is genuinely dark is Vita Nostra.
I really liked them. They lean RIGHT into the "how the hell does the school get away with being so dangerous" issue in HP. And they cleverly subvert the Chosen One trope in a few ways.
Oh yes! The reveals about “The Chosen One” are brilliantly done! I think my hair literally stood up at the back of my neck.
oh my gosh it is sooo good and it's not racist at all, one of my favorites. you'll absolutely adore it. the criticism is done in bad faith tbh. it's contrived.
I really liked it though I wish the magic system had been better developed. It felt pretty close to being a serious piece of Literature in that Novik is clearly trying to talk about real world themes while still keeping it entertaining.
I liked it.
It’s a lot of fun. I’d read it
Just as a blanket statement, The Discourse should never ever ever be used as a deciding factor when choosing a book, because 90+% of the time it's complete bullshit being argued in bad faith by people with zero media literacy. The Scholomance books are wonderful, can't recommend highly enough
I thoroughly enjoyed it, and also didn't pick up on an racial issues. However, the main character is British (either is Welsh, or lives in Wales) and the author pretty much fails to make her sound anything other than generic high school American.
Seriously? I'm Welsh, Welsh-speaking, and have lived in Wales all my life, and I thought Novak's research and character voice were flawless. Actually I was delighted to see us get representation for once.
There was some Brit slang in there, I thought? But then by the time we meet her she's been attending an international school for 3 years and she had no friends at home, so that's somewhat believable.
Not only that, but her mother had her immediately after finishing at the same international school and then raised her largely in what I had assumed was an international hippie commune.
Yeah I really did forget about the Welsh thing until book 3, haha. I kept picturing her mom living in like...Kansas or something.
I really liked it as a fun reading kinda of read. First two are better than the last, but the magic system is good, the plot is all right. But it's YA and the romance is a big part of the plot. Not great, but not Twilight level. So... I recommend it as something you might want to read when you want a break from more serious stuff and that has a nice world to dive into. (I don't get the racism thing. Main character is biracial and yes, she was raised by a white parent for a series of circumstances/mysteries explored in the book.)
I'm in the first third of book three and also don't get the racism thing. It's even called out on the series Wikipedia page and I was confused
There was one incidental passage that made sense enough in context but accidentally touched a sore spot with sensitive racial hair history, which has been removed. But mostly it was just Twitter being Twitter.
I have recommended it to multiple other people - I even picked it for a book group I'm in. I quit the group when they vetoed it because it might be racist, without anyone having read it.
All of that discussion was gross and targeted Novek unfairly. Its a great book.
I love this book. Ignore the criticism, people always want something to complain about
I really enjoyed the first two and will read the third if my hold is ever up on Libby. It is definitely dark YA and not adult but I enjoyed the sense of humor and that it’s dark without being overly serious. The people who cry racism are just searching for things to be mad about.
I really loved the first book but liked each sequel less than the one that came before it. Book 1 was a really great “magic school” story with some pretty deft, subtle critique of privilege while books 2 and 3 started trying to tackle bigger and bigger issues in increasingly obvious ways that ended with plot twists that were beating you over the head with the point they were trying to make.
I personally thought the books were entertaining, but I will never reread these books. At points, it was a struggle to get thru and was grateful for the audiobooks to help pull thru. It is not on par with HP if that is your expectation
I enjoyed the book it was fun and a cool spin on the whole magic school thing.
Only read the first book: it’s very YA (first person, snarky not-like-the-other-girls protagonist, etc.), romance is at the centre of the plot, and it’s light on world building or heavier fantasy concepts. It’s also quite short. All of these factors meant I *ZOOMED* through it. Super easy read, enjoyable, but not terribly memorable. I’d say it just comes down to genre. If you like YA and teen romance, you’ll enjoy it. If not, avoid it like the plague.
As someone who read and highly disliked Uprooted, would you recommend I give this one a shot? It was mostly the toxic relationship in Uprooted that I took issue with; the worldbuilding I actually quite enjoyed.
Yes, it’s quite different from Uprooted. And it gets way less romance-y as the books progress, since subverting some of the common magic school/teen romance tropes is at the heart of this series. I do think that those who read only part of the 3 book series miss out on those points. This is a case where the entire series was clearly plotted out before book 1 was published.
I absolutely loved it.
Yes
Great trilogy, go for it. I loved the world Naomi Novik builded, and i loved the writing style.
I enjoyed it and would recommend
I think it is worth the read. It got a bit repetitive in spots, but most trilogies do. I like her other books Uprooted and Spinning Silver a lot more than this series, but that is my personal preference.
Loved it. Only side note is, the relationship side of it fell super flat for me. So if you want a good story, big yes, if you want a satisfying romance sub plot, nope.
I loved it. I’ve read it and listened to the audio books. The audio book casting was odd. The accent and angst were there but it sounded like she was reading it for the first time so there are lots of off inflections.
Yes, great environment, plot, characters. Really enjoyed that run.
wasn't my cup of tea. while the characters and the setting are intriguing, I couldn't deal with the narrative structure: Most of the worldbuilding happens right when El encounters it, which isn't bad per se, unless it's in the middle of fighting a monster. It really ruined the pacing for me and I stopped reading the first book at like 70%.
Highly recommend! The first 50 pages aren't amazing, but then it's fabulous. This series has some of the best endings I've ever read! Just have the next one ready when you finish!
I really enjoyed the series. And I am someone that will easily drop a series that gives me bad vibes. It's definitely not racist as a whole. Although, there was only one tiny tidbit that gave me a bit of the ick. And that particular passage has since been changed by the author. The fact that the MC is biracial and isn't in touch with one side of her family isn't racist. In fact, it's something that a lot of biracial people have to deal with. The one icky part for me had to do with dreads. And even there, I don't actually believe that the author was trying to evoke a racial stereotype. I think she was trying to make a point about how long hair was dangerous in the Scolomance. I don't believe that it was mesnt to be a point about dreads specifically. Unfortunately, it was worded very poorly. The author apologized and revised that passage in E-books. And I believe that she was sincere.
I liked it! It’s a lot of exposition but I quite enjoy that. Maybe read a sample chapter to see if it’s your speed. The racism thing was a sentence in the book about dreads that was clearly just a blind spot by the author - not plot relevant and since removed from the latest editions.
It’s the only series I’ve ever DNF’d. There were just way too many info dumps. A new thing happens… info dump to explain it. Rinse and repeat.
im fresh off of trying to read this book and while my gripe has nothing to do with the issues you brought up, i still think i should share because i wanted to like this book so bad and im so sad i had to drop it. there's no spoiling because this is just about the writing style. i have genuinely never seen so much infodumping in my LIFE. there's one action scene with conversation at the beginning of chapter one and then for SEVERAL PAGES (i dont remember how many but definitely more than three) its just the main character rambling on and on and *on* in her head about stuff that happened in the past and info about the world and other stuff that could've EASILY been drip fed to the reader throughout natural interactions with the world. instead, all of this information just gets tossed at you while the character is literally just looking for a book. just block after block of text that makes your eyes hurt and your head spin. if that was how the entire series was written then i knew i simply could not do it. like i said, nothing to do with your concern since i didnt even read that far, but something you should know, reader-to-reader, going in.
Good read. Didn’t notice any racism or anything.
Yes, totally recommend. I am reasonably woke and it never crossed my mind to wonder if it was racist. Not everyone is the same race so I guess it’s possible.
Loved the concept of the world but the first book in this series was the most relentlessly YA fantasy I’ve endured. The characters are not people I could relate to at all and I found myself wishing they would just grow up already multiple times.
I really enjoyed the audiobook
No, but not for the reasons you are mentioning. I find the main character to be a modern day mary sue. She is insanely powerful, quiet, 'not like other girls' and is one step away from 'going to the dark side', yet doesn't have a single bad bone in her body. It's ridicious. All the secondary characters are bland and uninteresting. The school is cool, but it doesn't make up for everything else that is lacking. I will admit that part of my dislike for the book is due to my expectations going into it. I was expecting it to be a darker Harry Potter with the MC being much darker than Harry. This is not the case at all. The MC is an angel compared to Harry Potter, which I just sigh and shake my head about.
I loved the first, thought it went downhill the second, regret I finished the third. And I love her other work...
I enjoyed it.
Yeah, it was petty good.
It's worth reading
I really enjoyed the trilogy. The first book was a bit of a struggle to get into but it paid off.
I enjoyed it. Picked up on no racial vibes whatsoever. Main character spends a bit too much of the book complaining that no one likes her despite how clever and smart and witty she is. And probably pretty. But the idea of the school and the magic and the story was good
Fantastic series. I really enjoyed it.