The Last Graduate picks up right where A Deadly Education left off and ends on another tantalising cliffhanger!

El is now in her final year at the Scholomance and graduation is fast approaching. The students have to prepare for the unknown terrors of the graduation hall including El, Orion and her newfound friends. After the events of last year there may be less monsters about but it isn’t going to be any easier for El, now it seems like the school itself is out to get her!

El is finally able to unleash some of the power she kept hidden in the first book which is a very fun development.. She continues to tackle her dark tendencies but her conviction to do good never falters. That doesn’t mean she’s a flawless character, she can be needlessly grumpy, stubborn and at points frustrating for the reader but that makes her all the more relatable. El has clearly grown as a character and it’s nice to see her recognise and learn to accept the changes. We also get to know more about Orion’s background and motivations, his relationship with El is very sweet and has just the right amount of complexity.

Now El’s no longer a complete outcast there’s more interaction with other characters too and it’s really interesting to explore how they’re experiences of the Scholomance differ from El’s. Privilege is a particularly strong theme.

Novik’s twist on the magic school continues to be a delight, she has created such an incredibly detailed and complex world particularly considering it is mostly restricted to just one building. El’s inner monologue does have a tendency to go off on a tangent which can sometimes interrupt the flow of the narrative but this wasn’t something I really minded as it allows us to learn more and more about this world.

With El graduating it’s clear this series will have to move away from the Scholomance as it’s primary setting. I’m definitely going to miss it but I’ve been really intrigued by the information we get on the conclaves and the wider magic world in this book that I’m excited to find out more about what waits outside of the school.

I’m so excited for the next book in this series!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

An enjoyable follow up to A Deadly Education however I wish the author would stop finishing these books with such a massive cliffhanger... I wanted the story to be wrapped up with maybe a few threads left dangling, but this felt like the book was just unfinished. However, I will definitely be picking up book 3 so it worked on me

A Deadly Education was gripping and entertaining,this one is epic and make you wish you could read the next book very soon.
The author delivers a complex story, adding details to the world building and developing her characters in an interesting way.
I loved it and it's strongly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I really enjoyed A Deadly Education, so was super keen to read Naomi Novik's sequel.

El has reached her last year in the Scholomance, and it's finally time to face the terrors of graduation. With her fellow students, El works to find a solution to conquer the annual massacre of graduates by the monsters that inhabit the school. An intriguing mix of friendships, allyships, and showing how things always work out best if you work together, and perhaps don't just do the expected.

An excellent sequel, highly recommended. Could be read alone, but would be better after reading the first book.

The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik follows on from The Deadly Education, and so El and the others helped to clear the graduating hall for the year above them, and now it's their turn to plan their graduation!

I really enjoyed this book, just as I loved the first one, and have been telling anyone who will listen that this series is really good!  It's a fantasy, set in a school for magic, where there are things trying to kill the students, no teachers, but the school is alive with magic.  

The Last Graduate was published on 28th September 2021, and is available from Amazon, Waterstones (they have a special edition, if you move fast!) and Bookshop.org.

I bought myself the special edition of this book, and will be on the lookout for the third book, and hoping for a special edition again!

You can follow Naomi Novik on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and her website.

I've read the first book in this series, A Deadly Education, and you can read my review here.

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to Random House.

A Deadly Education was my favourite book of last year, gaining an unprecedented eleven out of five stars – and the sequel is just as brilliant!

Content warnings: Violence including murder, injuries, gore, many gross ways to die, and minor character death (none of this terribly graphic); black magic including using life force of others mentioned; suicide mentioned in the abstract; parental death mentioned.

My usual disclaimer about sequels applies – I’ll be as spoiler-free as I can, but discussing a sequel inherently tells you something about previous books, even if it’s only who’s alive, so if you haven’t read A Deadly Education yet, consider yourself warned. You should go back and read my rave review, then read the book, then come back!

I was apprehensive on starting The Last Graduate, almost sure that I’d hyped myself up too far, or that it wouldn’t live up to the standard of the first, or that I’d imagined the standard of the first… but I needn’t have worried. Within two pages, I was completely sucked back into El’s voice and the story as if I’d never left off – it starts seconds after that cliffhanger! – and before I knew it, I’d devoured a hundred pages. When I paused to look up for the first time, I immediately texted all my reading buddies to yell about how good it was! I think I said in my review of A Deadly Education that I’ve never identified with a character more than El, or at least I felt it a lot, and slipping back into her perspective was so smooth that I honestly didn’t notice myself reading this as a book. It felt almost like reading an old diary, like it was something I already recognised, but not in a boring or predictable way, just a sense of rightness with the telling – I’m probably explaining this badly, but what I mean is that if you click with this writing as much as I did, the reading experience is utterly seamless. It’s so immersive and characterful.

This book offers so much of an expansion on the characters we’ve come to love and the Scholomance itself. A lot of the major worldbuilding has already been done in the first book, but here we get more new monsters, more locations within the school, and more class schedules (seriously, I live for this kind of worldbuilding). We also get deeper looks at the magical world outside the Scholomance, and the kind of politics that await the survivors of the graduating class, because now, in their final year, El and her classmates can finally start to think about more than just surviving the immediate attacks. As El slowly stops resisting the lure of having friends, we get to see more moments from everyone, and the relationships became one of my favourite parts of the book. Towards the end (no spoilers!) I may have shed a tear or two just because of how proud I was of them all, but especially El, for learning to trust one another. Those of you on the hook to know what’s going on with a certain cinnamon roll bent on heroism, rest assured that there’s plenty of great Orion content, and his relationship with El was just brilliantly done. I loved getting to scratch his shiny surface a bit and see the darkness underneath; what a great foil to our destined-for-evil-but-secretly-a-bit-nice heroine.

Gosh, everything about this just sang to me – I want to dive into so many specifics, but I don’t want to spoil anything! Suffice to say, if you fell in love with the first book, you’ll be deeply satisfied with this (but desperate for book three). I can’t recommend this series highly enough if you, like me, love snarky, powerful girls and really meticulous worldbuilding where you actually get to see behind the scenes of a magical school. It’s fantastic. I’m reigning it in on the extra stars for the sake of inflation, but it’s for sure a five out of five, and just as wonderful as book one!

It feels like I have been waiting forever for this book and I was so excited to dive back in, especially as the dreaded graduation looms closer for El and her friends. Of course, straight away things are harder for El as it seems the school is actively picking on her and giving her more than just graduation to concentrate on in a year that ordinarily that’s all she would be thinking about.

I have to admit that even though the school was making it really hard for El, I still loved that it was a character in itself, that it was evolving and really pushing what El could do. I think that is what adds to the completely unexpected nature of this book because you never know what is going to happen next and it gave me this continual on the edge of my seat feeling which made the reading experience exciting.

I loved the growth that El goes through in this book, for the first book she spends her time actively avoiding people and now she is essentially centre stage and decides that she is going to use that advantage. I won’t say how but it is not something I would have anticipated and I loved that she could still be her rude and sarcastic self whilst having a very big revelation that she finds herself working toward. I also like how much of a threat she now appears to be, she spent the first book hiding her power and now she has cause to let it loose a little, it causes some interesting situations between her and some of the other students.

El and Orion were as brilliant as ever, El is still berating him and still having to save him from himself, as he finds himself without as much purpose this year. I like how their friendship kept evolving even though El was actively trying not to let it happen and her new mouse Precious gets in on the action which was funny. We get to see a bit of a different side to Orion and that made me love him a little more and I was glad that El understood him a little better as they headed toward graduation.

I definitely did not expect what happened in this book, everything once again gets turned on its head in the best way and El and her friends and her enemies all have to work together, but I have to say even with all the unexpected things happening I was not prepared for the ending of The Last Graduate. It really had me shook, it kind of feels like the cliffhanger to top all other cliffhangers, it actually took me a few days just to get over it if I’m being honest and now I am desperate for the third instalment of this series.

The Last Graduate picks up directly after the first book. El is still standing there, holding the piece of paper she was given at the end of the first book, and I like that Novik chose to do this rather than skip time, as most authors do. We got to see El’s reaction straight away, got to know what she was feeling at that moment rather than hindered with any hindsight, and I don’t think it would have worked any other way. Everything about The Scholomance is in the moment. Hindsight is for survivors.

As suspected from the synopsis, everything changes this year and El is thrown through a loop by the school. She’s given a horrible study schedule, and then this amazing study period that seems like it’s too good to be true which of course, it is because this is The Scholomance. Nothing is ever for nothing in here. As she tries to keep up with her studies, normal Scholomance life, planning for graduation, teenage life and on top of it the bombshell her mum landed in her lap, El finds herself trying to unravel the fun new rubbish the School is throwing at her.

Then, she slowly begins to realise that the School doesn’t do anything without a purpose…. and her and her friends end up taking on a massive task that no one has ever done before. Is it really throwing out all the rules if the School is on your side?

In the first book, the idea of the Scholomance and how horrible the entire system was didn’t quite hit home. In this one, something happens outside the school and the students have to come to terms with realising that they have no way of knowing what they’re walking back out into. They know something has happened, something terrible, and for all they know the world outside could be falling to pieces. They are completely isolated in The Scholomance without any communication with anyone outside, save for the new students that enter, and they have just come in with the bad news. For El and her friends they’ll find out when they graduate, however, all the younger students have a year or more to find out what is happening. During their time in The Scholomance anything could happen to their family, and they wouldn’t know until they leave. It’s just as terrifying for their families, though, because they have no idea if their children are even surviving inside the school, and yet they have no choice because outside the school it’s too dangerous. The world Novik has created is terrifying.

I loved the first book in this series, I didn’t think it would be possible to love the second any more… I was wrong. The characters develop even more in The Last Graduate, and I loved the friendship between El, Aadhya and Liu. In the first book their friendship was tentative, an alliance for graduation rather than a friendship, and in The Last Graduate they grow closer. They begin to let their guard down around each other, and trusting one another with secrets and fears. El struggles with abandonment issues throughout the book, but her friends stick by her, and Novik’s dialogue during these conversations is both poignant and witty as Aadhya whips up some sass to convince El that they’re not going anywhere for the third time;

“Stop it!” she said. “I think that’s like the third time you’ve asked to be ditched. You’re like one of those puffer fish, the second anyone touches you a little wrong you go all bwoomp,” she illustrated with her hands, “trying to make them let go. We’ll let you know, how’s that?”

The sarcasm in book one was fantastic, in The Last Graduate it’s been refined to a fine art and I love it. This is a book for everyone who loves sarcasm, for the people who roll their eyes and say “really?” or walk into rooms and walk back out of them again while muttering “you’ve got to be joking…”.

The one thing I wasn’t quite sold on in this book is the romance. I think it’s because I spent most of the book analysing the love interest and trying to work out what was going on. I think I was thinking far too much about it when it was a lot simpler than I was imagining. Normally I tend to fall for the romance hard (I’m a Libra, after all), and I felt it more for the secondary characters than I did for the main characters.

At the Del Rey Showcase, Novik said that we would hate her even more at the end of this book. That was an accurate assessment. If you thought the first cliffhanger was bad, this one is even worse.

What more can I say? A fantastic book, one hell of a cliffhanger and oh goodness please give us the next book quickly?! It’s been a long time since I’ve been this caught up with books that I’ve had to handle a cliffhanger, normally I’m years behind, and so I just move onto the next one! No agonising wait.

Considering how The Last Graduate has ended, the third book is going to be explosive in a lot of ways. It’s going to be one hell of a book and I can’t wait.

I love Naomi Novik and I loved A Deadly Education but I didn't really see the point of this book? I felt like it could have been condensed down into several chapters at the beginning of the next book? Nothing really progressed the story and the romance was heavily centred which is not my preference. Overall, it was fun but wildly underwhelming considering the high expectations I had for this book.

I couldn’t help but love every moment of 'The Last Graduate' even when some descriptions were left wanting.

'The Last Graduate' picks up immediately where 'A Deadly Education' ended, which reflects the way the school year at the Scholomance works — no holidays. If it has been a while since you read the first novel, it might be worth revisiting it before beginning the sequel, as there is little recap here. El and her friends dive right into their final year coursework and training for graduation. Even though the book is quite long, some aspects felt rushed mainly because it covers the course of a whole year. Particularly towards the beginning I felt as though I was being rushed through the weeks to reach the main plot points.

Nevertheless, it is easy to fall back into the rhythm of El’s sarcastic, witty tone which I continue to adore. There is something completely loveable and, in parts, relatable about her, despite her flaws. In fact, her flaws aid her character and Novik does a great job at showing El’s development as she battles with years of ingrained trust issues and negative self-image. She certainly comes out of this book a much better person than the girl we first met, even if she still has a way to go.

Our other characters were just as enjoyable. Watching friendship blossom between Aadhya, Liu and El was wonderful, especially because each of them needed the friendship just as much as the others. Orion was…Orion. Heroic and awkward, yet loveable all the same. His character felt a little under-developed however, with many of his appearances feeling quite robotic and lacking in personality. I hope book three will offer some development here.

One issue I had was a bit of confusion with the blending of American and British customs and phrases. El is Welsh, and often uses terms that are typically British. However there are times when Americanisms slip through which became jarring when paired with mentions of El’s identity. Similarly, there was little description for character appearances, which meant the somewhat diverse identities of the main characters were lost behind the frequent mention of the New York enclave.

'The Last Graduate' changes the tune of the Scholomance series ever-so-slightly, as we begin to learn a little more about the world the books are set in. As the plot progresses, we learn more about the building of the school and events happening in the outside world which are evidently building up to future novels which, yes, I already know I’ll be reading.

As dramatic and deadly as the Scholomance is, there is something cosy about this book. Perhaps the ease with which Novik brings us back to these characters and this story, or perhaps the delicious theme of education and magic that adds just a hint of a dark academia feel. I completely devoured this book, in spite of the long chapters, because I simply couldn’t leave these characters behind.

Novik is a queen of dramatic endings, and The Last Graduate is no different. If you enjoyed 'A Deadly Education; then I have no doubt you’ll be loving its sequel just as much, and be as desperate for news of a third book as me.

I’m not sure if it’s because I was a teacher, but the magical schools sub-genre is a favourite and I thoroughly enjoyed A Deadly Education. Though I was a bit fed up with the cliff-hanger at the end – and I’m warning you now, there’s another at the end of The Last Graduate.

El isn’t such a hardcore, in-your-face character this time around. For starters, she now has a loyal group of friends, and other alliances with a handful of enclave kids who have far more resources and protections than those without that kind of advantage. And it’s just as well she’s got more going for her as this year, as the School has become a lot more aggressive – with El apparently a prime target. Novik writes action scenes really well and has a glorious suite of delightfully revolting monsters that squish satisfyingly when they meet their messy end. This series would make a wonderful TV series.

However, if you were one of those who found the descriptions of the magic and the world outside a tad tedious in A Deadly Education (I didn’t…), then you won’t fare any better in this offering. El has a lot to say about the political situation, the history of the school and the very complex magic system, particularly in the first half of the book. It didn’t bother me, partly because we need to know all the information, partly because I found it fascinating anyway. I’m a huge fan of El, who has a natural talent for horrific destruction but has had it dinned into her by her adorable mother, that she can’t afford to give into those instinct at all. And Novik manages to depict her absolutely following the rules without her coming off as sickeningly good.

El is bad-tempered, overly cynical, far too touchy and apt to push away those who genuinely want to befriend her – but despite that, she is rigid in trying to avoid doing harm. I really like the fact that she isn’t the overwhelmed, put-upon victim doing the best she can in awful circumstances, either. She’s far too powerful for that. That doesn’t stop her from becoming increasingly trapped in a terrible situation, where the right thing to do is plain terrifying. I also enjoyed the humour, albeit a tad dark-edged, that runs through this story. And I am impressed with Novik’s successful portrayal of a Brit main character, complete with the sardonic street-wise dialogue.

While there is plenty of action throughout, the pace and tension really picks up in the second half of the book, which was difficult to put down once it hit its stride. I was glad Himself had warned me about that ending, though – otherwise I think it would have gone flying across the room. Which is why I’ve passed the warning on. All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable, entertaining read – and I’m very much looking forward to the third book in the series. The ebook arc copy of The Last Graduate was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest opinion of the book.
9/10

This ending was nor fair 😭

Absolutely lived this fantastic follow up to Novik's A Deadly Education - it had all my favourite aspects as the first book, but seemed more...gritty? Idk. It was definitely funny, sharp and El was fantastic, again no surprise there. It was good to see how she pieced things together and loved how the Scholomance engaged with her.

Cannot wait for book 3!

A Deadly Education was my second Naomi Novik book and I loved every page, so when I was given the opportunity to read an early copy of The Last Graduate I jumped at the chance.

All the characters I had learned to love (and hate) in the first book were back and better than ever. El continued to make me laugh with her dark humour and stubborn nature. Orion was still set on saving the day but we learned more about his childhood and why he is so desperate to be the saviour that everyone wants him to be. Their relationship made my heart hurt and I loved to see other friendships developing and strengthening throughout the book. The addition of characters such as Precious (a mouse!) were just the icing on the cake.

I really can't wait to see what the final book brings, especially after that amazing cliffhanger!

Huge thanks to Del Rey and NetGalley for the advanced copy.

A cross between Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, The Last Graduate is an imaginative, exciting and darkly funny fantasy, full of magic and monsters.

The Last Graduate picks up where A Deadly Education left off with Galadriel ‘El’ Higgins now a senior. In just a few months she and her fellow classmates will leave Scholomance, a sentient school built in the void to educate the children of the magical community, forever - assuming they survive the traditional attrition of graduation day.

I was delighted to rejoin El, her allies, and enemies, at Scholomance, where navigating every activity, from bathroom visits to classroom assignments, is a matter of life and death. As a member of the graduating class, El’s focus should be on passing finals, building manna, and shoring up her alliances in preparation for graduation, but Scholomance seems determined to make her life difficult, throwing mals (monsters), and hapless freshmen, in her path. It’s some time before El recognises the school’s motive for what it is - not a curse, but a plea.

While there is plenty of action as the students prepare for the graduation day gauntlet, the lulls allow for character development. El, once friendless, now has a strong pact with Liu and Aadhya, and the support of the New York enclave, thanks in part to her somewhat complicated relationship with Orion Lake, but is still reluctant to trust others, or her self. I really like El, but I was glad to see some character growth. She remains a pessimist with a quick temper and a sarcastic wit, but also proves resourceful, determined, loyal, and a little less guarded.

I felt there was more emphasis on the themes of privilege, inequality and competition vs cooperation in this novel. The latter is of particular importance as the events in The Last Graduate suggest a twist to the prophecy that warns El, with her prodigious magical strength, will be responsible for the destruction of the enclaves.

There is no denying that the cliffhanger ending is hugely frustrating, and as it will likely be another year until the third book is released, it’s going to be a long wait, so I hope the pay off will be worth it!

The Last Graduate is the second book of the Scholomance. Senior year has begun and graduation is looming for El and her classmates- the day they must fight their way through the graduation hall and back out into the freedom of the world. But what’s waiting for them in the Hall?

This was fantastic! I’m going to really struggle to write a coherent review here because frankly I just want to write “AAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH” and be done with it. Anyway.

There’s no waffle at the beginning of the book, it dives straight back in where the first book left off and it doesn’t really stop- there’s definitely parts where the narration goes off on a tangent and I’ve heard others say they’re not a huge fan of that kind of writing, but I think it works quite well. I found it really hard to put the book down at all as the story just keeps you gripped until the very end, and what an ending! Gutted I’m going to have to wait another year for the next one.

This, Was. Incredible.

After giving 4.5 stars to the first book (A DEADLY EDUCATION), I was hoping that THE LAST GRADUATE would push it that one step further for me to give it 5 stars and Naomi Novik absolutely did not disappoint.

We pick up directly where A DEADLY EDUCATION left off, with El having just received a note from her mother in the outside world. From here, the characterisation and character development for El was SO fun to watch unravel and I really loved her slow realisation that she actually CARED about people?!

Throughout the book there is still the looming threat of Graduation, which gives good tension throughout the book. I think one of my favourite parts was when they were doing the obstacle course to "prepare" for the inevitable bloodbath that awaited them below.

Another standout character for me obviously had to be Orion Lake. He is one of the funniest himbo characters I've ever had the pleasure to read, and I shipped him and El fiercely. His sulking and trying to ask her out awkwardly really solidified him as a favourite character in general, let alone in the book.

I also loved El's friendship group development with Aadhya and Liu. I genuinely teared up at several moments between these three girls, and that doesn't happen often! The amount of side characters that had development was astounding, none of them felt 2D or shoved in for plot purposes. I really enjoyed El's interactions with all the different students, especially the freshman.

Overall I am INCREDIBLY EXCITED for the finale to the trilogy, especially after that ending?! I'd highly recommend the series to anyone, especially if they like first person narrative/diary-like thoughts style of writing.

The world Naomi Novik has created is at once intriguing and horrifying. A world where evil creatures are drawn to feed on wizarding children, students at the whim of a teacherless boarding school infested with said evil creatures. Its a harsh environment with even harsher lessons. El is now in her final year. She has made some alliances and is tentatively learning to appreciate and lean on newly formed friendships. Her cold exterior even thaws a little towards Orion, our resident hero. Their awkward, confused (Orion) Angry (El!) Interactions were humourous to read. I thought El's personal growth particularly interesting. She may come across as harsh and definitely cold hearted but it is hard to judge her since she is a product of her environment, and as such I felt I understood her motivations behind some of her decisions and attitude. Seeing her slowly unlearning and questioning some of the behaviour that admittedly, has kept her alive, thus far in the brutal environment of the scholomance, added an additional layer to the story.
So I thought this was a duology (because I have a bad habit of assuming all series are duologies!) Now that the initial shock has worn off I am excited for the third installment. I am hoping the world is expanded and we get to see life outside the scholomance. I want to find out why the adults and powers that be thought such a brutal setup was the best way to prepare the children for their world. Overall this is a dark, at times gruesome, definitely brutal take on the magical school trope.

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.

So i tried to read the first book and wasn’t the biggest fan. If i do end up reading it i will change this review.

'The Last Graduate’ is the much anticipated sequel to ‘A Deadly Education‘, Naomi Novik’s foray into fantasy dark academia. Like its predecessor, its a stream-of-consciousness style novel packed full of El’s righteous anger, dry humour, and general over-dramatisation – but this is also a more mature novel, showing off more of the Scholomance and its place in the world, and allowing El a great deal of personal growth. Its a compelling read throughout, gradually picking up pace and ending on a cliffhanger that demands the next book immediately. Overall, it’s an exceptional addition to the Scholomance series and sets things up tantalisingly for a grand finale.

El, Orion, and their classmates are now seniors, with just a single year to prepare for the horrors of graduation. However, El finally has something she never expected to have – a graduation alliance – which means she might just survive after all. First, she has to navigate the daily perils of life in the Scholomance – less dangerous than they used to be, but still ever-present – the complexity of actually having friends, and of course her mother’s warning. But with her death less imminently on the horizon, El starts to allow herself to dream – and those dreams might be even more perilous than anything that has come before.

El remains a sarcastic, prickly character with no tolerance for anyone else’s ineptitude, but she’s starting to become more self aware – she’s realised that, on the inside, she’s actually a nice person, and she has no idea what to do about that. All her life she’s been told she’s an immeasurable evil. The perspective shift is fascinating – and El really struggles with keeping up a tough face and accepting that she’s actually a marshmallow. She also has no idea how to interact with people – other than her mum, it’s not something she’s really had to do before – so watching her try to figure out her friendship with Aadhya, Liu, and Chloe, and her maybe-something-more with Orion is brilliant.

As the entire book is told from El’s head, the perspective on the other characters is limited, but Aadhya, Liu, Chloe, and Orion are still given room and space for growth. Orion especially is fleshed out a lot more in ‘The Last Graduate’, going from the hero who always wants to save the day to a far more insecure figure. El, with her potential for mass destruction, initially seems like the morally grey one – but the more that’s revealed about Orion, the more it becomes clear that it’s a lot more complicated. I love the way Novik flips hero and villain tropes on their head and continually obscures any clear morality.

One of my favourite characters in ‘The Last Graduate’ is the Scholomance itself, which develops hugely from ‘A Deadly Education’. There, it is simply an unusual and eccentric school packed with monsters – in the sequel, it becomes a character in its own right with elements of personality and almost a sense of humour. Anthropomorphic settings are one of my favourite fantasy tropes and Novik executes it well, allowing it to develop slowly – especially because El, for someone with great powers of observation and deduction, can sometimes be surprisingly oblivious to anything happening outside of her own head.

The plot starts slowly, focusing on El’s battle with herself, but the action ramps up in the second half. I actually enjoyed both sections equally – El’s internal turmoil is brilliantly written, and the action scenes and desperation in the second half are equally engaging – but I can see how some readers would find the first half more difficult going. Those who struggled with the more tangential sections in ‘A Deadly Education’ might find this takes a while to get into, but it’s worth it for the finale.

The weakest bit, for me, is the romance – but my quibbles are very minor. For a book that takes place inside El’s head, it can be very hard to see what she actually thinks of Orion – but then, El spends a lot of time trying to hide her own feelings from herself, especially any that she finds inconvenient, so its easy to see why. Their interactions remain frequently hilarious, and Orion around El is exceptionally sweet. It’s not a particularly healthy relationship, but El clearly acknowledges this – as do those around her, who regularly hold her accountable for her occasional unthinking selfishness.

Overall, ‘The Last Graduate’ enhances the world established in ‘A Deadly Education’, taking the excellent characters and ideas and elevating them to new heights. Its an excellent sequel, and one that lays the groundwork for a formidable finale. I can’t wait to find out what happens next.