A high fantasy YA that mixes Harry Potter with The Hunger Games and maybe a little of The Maze Runner (based on the movies, didn’t read them). But it’s kind of like Percy Jackson since the point of Camp Half-Blood is to protect them from evil beings too. 

A Deadly Education follows El, a young witch/sorceress in her junior year at the Scholomance. The Scholomance is an automated school (that’s basically sentient) of magic. Each year, magical children that reach the age of 14, are teleported into their freshman dorm rooms and will spend the next 4 years honing their magic so they can survive graduation and the outside world. 

Their magic begins to rapidly grow with puberty and basically become beacons for mal (different types of magical monsters that eat magical humans), because they’re young and their magic is new, they are defenseless. Before the school, 60% of magical children would die because the mal would eat them. Some children are more protected than others. There are enclaves (or covens) around the world that are able to store magic and protect one another from mal (though they’re hardly appealing once they’re old and able to fend for themselves). 

The Scholomance  carries the politics of the outside world since not everyone is invited into an enclave. This is how El and her mother (Gwen) lived before she went to school. They live with mundanes (non-magical humans) instead, because Gwen doesn’t care for the politics and selfishness of the enclaves. El’s father died during his and Gwen’s graduation when he sacrificed himself to save Gwen and their unborn child. Graduation is when the school forces out the seniors through the only exit, which has hundreds of mal lying in wait for an annual feast. There’s, of course, a machine that’s supposed to kill the mal just before graduation, but that’s been broken for over a century. 

The school also has multiple breaches, and the students aren’t safe from mal even behind the school walls. So many children die before they even have a chance to fight through graduation. 

El is a loner, which is a deadly choice since there’s safety in numbers. But she spent her life not being liked by other people, even mundanes, simply because of her vibe. People have even left her for dead as a child rather than help protect her. When Gwen was able to track down El’s paternal family in India, they were at first happy to welcome Gwen and El, until her great-grandmother had a premonition that El would be the cause of great destruction. Gwen flees with El to Wales where she raises her in a mundane commune. 

At the Scholomance, last quarter of her junior year, El is (annoyingly) being saved by enclave heir and golden boy, Orion Lake. His affinity is combat magic and he’s made it his mission to kill as many mal and save as many students as possible. El is constantly rude to Orion, who suspects she’s evil and steals the magic from others (thus killing them). When he figures out he’s wrong, he still sticks around and takes El’s rudeness since she’s the only one that treats him like a normal kid. The whole school things Orion is dating her and the enclaves get restless. Eventually El makes friends. And they all decide to try to fix the machine in the graduation room. They have no way of knowing if their plan worked until they graduate next year. 

El is extremely powerful and the school often tries to give her dark spells of death and destruction rather than giving her a simple spell she asked for (like asking for a cleaning spell and instead getting one that would enslave another into doing her bidding). But her affinity isn’t ever revealed and she keeps her head down. She doesn’t mention that her mother is a famous healer that knows nearly everyone, to avoid any attention. But of course, Orion befriending her changes everything for her. 

Okay, so this book was mainly just info dumping. Like just 85% information and 15% of an actual plan of action. We meet El and see her day-to-day while witnessing her change in status and how she handles it. We also see how truly gifted and powerful she is. And we learn about mana (magic) and mal, and how wizard politics works and plays into the dynamics in the school. It isn’t until 15% left of the book they decide to fix the machine in the graduation room, come up with a plan, and then execute it. 

That’s not to say the book was boring. El was attacked every other page or being confronted by enclavers or making cool magical items and spells. But it just feels a little pointless and doesn’t really hype up the rest of the series. 

There is some BIPOC representation in this book. El is half-Indian and her two friends are Middle Eastern and East Asian. The school takes magical children from around the world so there are children and characters from minority backgrounds. This book does display issues with classism and elitism, and there’s the symbolism of El being much darker than the people she eventually befriends and Orion who is white, and she’s the one who is outcasted (even though he friend was using malia [dark magic]). 

There are a few things that could be problematic or an oversight on Novik’s part. Though there are many students that aren’t able to shower regularly if they’re outcasts (since there’s no one to guard their stall from mal), thus there’s a few smelly kids in this school, El talks about having a bad smell several times in the book, and it’s a huge stereotype against South Asian kids. Again, it could be an oversight (best case scenario), but still, think before you write. And there was that comment about a language worksheet having a cartoon man mowing down people in a car and it having to be an Arabic worksheet based off of that. Yeah. That was pretty on the nose. 

But yeah no plot at all with a few problematic statements. I’m hoping they’re mistakes, but who knows.  And for all the info dumping, there’s a lot about the magical system and world building I don’t understand or was just not explained well. The concept is very interesting (the whole graduate or die thing) and the little bit of commentary on classism was decent. Could be more in-depth all the way around. 

Unsure if I will read the rest of the series. Luckily I didn’t buy it. Thank god for libraries.