A Deadly Education

I grew up in the era of Harry Potter. I dragged my parents to bookstores, standing in line for midnight releases. I went to Harry Potter themed summer camps. I asked for my mom to knit me scarves with the colors of each Harry Potter house. And while I’ve soured on Harry Potter for a variety of reasons – Rowling’s raging transphobia being only one of many – A Deadly Education plucked at the joy of magic school stories, which is something that’s never going to entirely vanish from my fantasy reading habits.

Elevator Pitch:
I pitch this story as a magic school where everything tries to kill you: the monsters, the students, even the furniture. El is foretold to be a sorceress of epic proportions. With a knack for apocalyptic magic and stealing power life itself, she’s been told from a young age that she’s going to rip apart wizarding society at the seams. Not that she ever uses those dark powers. She mostly just wants to survive her four years at this death-trap of a school in one piece on her shoestring mana budget. When she finds her big moment to show off and win alliances ruined by class savior Orion, her path shifts forever.

What Worked for Me
Whether or not you love or hate this book is going to depend more-or-less entirely on your perspective on the narrator. El is irreverent, grumpy, sarcastic, and more than a touch unreliable. She thinks the world is out to get her, is pissed off at everyone for most of the book, and is terrified that the prophecy about her will come true. I see people talking about El and this book as a great example of an Anti-Hero story, but El’s moral code is so solid that she won’t cheat in even the most minor ways. And while she talks big game about being selfish, when the chips are down she prioritizes helping others over herself.

Novik’s writing is representative of the modern style, and encapsulates what I think most ‘book-tok’ books aspire to. The chapters are generally short, with cliffhanger endings common. The language is simple and brutally readable, and its the type of story that lends itself to putting off bedtime because you know with 20 minutes you’ll be able to reach that really good part coming up. It’s also one of my go-to rereads, since I can find and burn through the parts I enjoy most in less than a day without spending too much mental energy. I highly recommend reading a sample online before committing to this book, since 1-2 pages will give you a good idea of the tone to see if its the right fit for your reading preferences.

Finally, I just wanted to acknowledge how successful this book was at writing an overpowered character. El is, at any point in time, either the strongest person in the room or damn close to it. From page 1 she could kill everyone and everything in the school with little more than an incantation taken from the grimoire of some ancient evil warlock the school library delivered at her feet. Because of this, tension in the story can’t come from traditional fantasy conflicts. While you do get fun magical battles against monsters, that’s never where the meat of the conflict in this story comes from. And this book is a masterclass in how to write magically powerful characters into stories that don’t lose their sense of tension.

What Didn’t Work for Me
My biggest (and only significant issue I think) with this book is how sexual assault was handled. While El isn’t sexually assaulted, a monster attack is described in terms of being sexually assaulted. That alone isn’t bad, but the way the aftermath was treated bugged me. It felt like trauma was used as a fun comparison, but never really engaged with in serious ways, or acknowledged the lasting impacts of moments like that.

In Conclusion: A fast-paced dark magic school story which is a lot of fun and a blisteringly fast read.

• Characters – 3
• Worldbuilding – 4
• Craft – 4
• Themes – 3
• Enjoyment – 5