Stevie‘s review of The Last Graduate (The Scholomance, Book 2) by Naomi Novik
Contemporary Young Adult Fantasy published by Del Rey 28 Sep 21
I was under the impression, right up until I started writing this review, that the Scholomance books were a duology. I was wrong, in that apparently the series is going to be a trilogy. With that realisation, I’ve had to re-examine some of my thoughts from ‘wouldn’t it be nice if we could see how that idea turns out’ to ‘I wonder how that idea’s going to play out and/or be thwarted in Book Three.’ Seeing as how this novel managed to address some of my concerns from the first, but left other issues still out there, the answer could go either way. But I’ll leave the plot-holes relating to race and nationality to be tackled by other reviewers. Our story picks up, more or less, where the previous one stopped – a new academic year is about to begin, the school has undergone a thorough cleansing, and one of the new influx of students has just given El a note from her mother.
El’s Mum is a mystic, who is famous amongst magical and non-magical (hippyish) folk alike, so the note is naturally a vague warning to El against spending time with the boy she has been fighting alongside for the past year, Orion Lake. El and Orion have a lot more fighting to do in their final year at the Scholomance, if they are to survive to Graduation Day and beyond. This is the year in which students have to form or cement their alliances, and to work on their combined skills in order to battle their way out through the monster-filled graduation hall. Fortunately, the school prepares students for the dangers they’ll face at graduation by creating obstacle courses for them in the gymnasium. Unfortunately, these are also rather dangerous, to say the least.
El and her friends brainstorm various ways to increase their chances of survival and look out for more students to join their alliance, but it seems as if the school itself is trying to communicate with El. Eventually she realises she doesn’t just have to help her friends to get out, there’s a way she can save everyone, especially given Orion’s talent for rescuing people from deadly peril. Helped by the school, as well as by friends old and new, El and Orion hatch their plans – and occasionally make out with each other – all the way up to Graduation Day itself and the time of reckoning.
I enjoyed this book, although its flaws were more visible to me than those of the first. We got some LGBT+ representation this time around, along with a nod to the idea that kids from traditional magical families might want to stay closeted. There were also musings from El about ways she could make the world a better place for her fellow magic users after graduation, along with more backstory on the world she, Orion, and their friends inhabit. The book’s ending came as a bit of a shock to me, when I was assuming that was all we’d be getting, and now I’m slightly irked at having to wait a year until the cliffhanger is resolved. I’ll definitely be reading the conclusion to the trilogy for a range of reasons, however.
Grade: B
Summary:
In Wisdom, Shelter. That’s the official motto of the Scholomance. I suppose you could even argue that it’s true—only the wisdom is hard to come by, so the shelter’s rather scant.Our beloved school does its best to devour all its students—but now that I’ve reached my senior year and have actually won myself a handful of allies, it’s suddenly developed a very particular craving for me. And even if I somehow make it through the endless waves of maleficaria that it keeps throwing at me in between grueling homework assignments, I haven’t any idea how my allies and I are going to make it through the graduation hall alive.
Unless, of course, I finally accept my foretold destiny of dark sorcery and destruction. That would certainly let me sail straight out of here. The course of wisdom, surely.
But I’m not giving in—not to the mals, not to fate, and especially not to the Scholomance. I’m going to get myself and my friends out of this hideous place for good—even if it’s the last thing I do.
Read an excerpt.
Other books in this series:
