Have you ever sat down to read a book with plans of writing notes as you go, for the purpose of reviewing? Then, in the end, you’ve written nothing because you devoured the book and are considering a reread the second after you finished it. That’s where I was with A Deadly Education. I feel 2020 has been a good year for me choosing the perfect books to read and I’m freaking delighted I got an early copy of this.

Galadriel and Orion… Those Names!
Our main and point of view character is Galadriel. Yes, her name is Galadriel, yes, that’s awesome. Yes, there’s a specific Lord of the Rings mention in this. Yes, I was delighted and geeked out a little bit. El was a fantastic strong, female character who was not interested in taking any crap. In fact, she so didn’t want to take any crap that she usually caused herself more problems with her stand-offish and often aggressive attitude. Frankly, I related hard to this, so it just made me love her more. In public, it takes all my willpower not to glare and tell people to back off. Usually in more colourful language. Language like El occasionally uses.

“What I asked for was a spell to light my room, you twat, that’s what I got.”

Galadriel, A Deadly Education

This is her talking to the puppy dog of Orion and I cackled. This was *chefs kiss*. I can really hear the way she’d say it.

Character Arcs
El’s character arc was glorious, and as the story was told from her point of view, we got to see it via her thoughts and feelings. I appreciated reading her internal struggles of being nice vs. her instinct of pushing everyone away and how she tried to balance it, and frequently failed. El is inherently flawed, and those flaws are what I loved, related to and had me cheering her on the whole time. It’s also worth mentioning that El is half-Indian, half-Welsh and that makes for a fascinating backstory

We’ve also got Orion. Your everyday, magical, knight in shining armour. Apart from the fact, he’s really not. Yeah, he’s got the saving people down to a fine art. The suave, sweep you off your feet after it? Not so much. Orion kind-of reminded me of a puppy Labrador or golden retriever. He’s got a good heart, but he’s absolutely clueless. And I loved him for it. I worried at first it was going to be the cliché character, but he really wasn’t and it was interesting to follow, not so much his development, but the development of how those around him treated him just because he saved people and had a privileged background but didn’t act like anyone expected.

Magic and Monsters
The world that Naomi Novik has built for The Deadly Education is fantastic, and my favourite thing about this whole book. The fact the school itself is almost a character I could’ve listed above, the way there are no teachers but the school can handle things perfectly well itself. That, and the way the magic works.

Magic isn’t necessarily easy to pick-up – you have to study, and study very hard. You have to learn multiple languages if you want a variety of spells, you have to work your ass off just for survival, you have to hope the school grants you good spells, or at least spells worthy of trade. I could’ve read another 100 pages just about the spells and magic. It was fascinating to me; I wanted to just read about what spells people had obtained, which languages they were in and what it was worthy of trading for.

On the subject of the school, the description was great. I always felt like I could picture the exact environment around El, including the variety of monsters hiding around the corner or in the dark recess of a room.

Essentially, I just need more of these characters, this world, this book. And the way it ended made me need book 2 even more. I’m super excited to see what’s coming next, and also… I wonder what merch there will be?

Oh, not only the merch, I’ve also got one or two special editions on pre-order!

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Created Aug 06, 2021 at 4:12pm • Submit your own review...