A Deadly Education - The Scholomance #1, Naomi Novik
A+: this was a delight. Fun, a little horrifying, and great dynamics between characters.
In the Scholomance, there are no teachers, no holidays, and no friendships, save strategic ones. Survival is more important than any letter grade, for the school won’t allow its students to leave until they graduate… or die! The rules are deceptively simple: Don’t walk the halls alone. And beware of the monsters who lurk everywhere. El has astonishing destructive powers but no allies - until she forms an unlikely friendship with God’s gift to humanity, Orion Lake. (adapted from the Goodreads page)
This book has been called racist. I personally don’t think it deserves all the flak it’s getting - I explain my feelings on the matter below the cut. The mistakes Novik made were few (throwaway sentences, not plot points) and they were due to being misguided rather than being malicious.
I had such a good time with this, and can’t wait to see where the series goes next. It’s the sort of story where things get better as they go on, I think, which is one of my favourite types. Grumpy, antisocial El collects friends against her will in this book, and I can’t wait to see what those friends do in the next.
This is the one school story I’ve read that feels like how high school feels for me - which sounds like an exaggeration, with the amount of death going on here. But the constant stress, working at every second, exclusively talking to your friends about schoolwork, and worrying at every second about final exams or what you’re going to do once you get out there into the world and have to deal with real-world problems, which are somehow worse? That’s what high school is like, and I did not anticipate the story to get it right would be one in which characters are routinely killed by monsters.
While El spends a little too much time narrating the way the school and the world works and a little too little time on action, she’s such a charismatic protagonist and Novik has made such an enjoyable world that I almost didn’t mind.
Also, Orion and El’s relationship? A joy to read. It was definitely a departure from the mature, balancing-of-power-dynamics of Uprooted and Spinning Silver. It’s the perfect hero and a loser who really enjoys being mean to him, and it’s entertaining and teenage and a little bit adorable.
Plot: surprisingly little of it, but it worked well. It isn’t exaggerating to say El spends more than half of the book just explaining the world to the audience. Since the whole plot takes place in just a couple weeks, though, it works better than I was expecting it to.
Characters: excellent. El - Galadriel Higgins, a half-Indian girl raised by her hippie white mother in a peace-and-love commune, foretold as someone who will destroy worlds. I adore her. And while Orion, God’s perfect moster-killing himbo, and their relationship is pretty great, what I really loved was El making friends with two other girls. Aadhaya and Liu, who I’d love to see more of in later books because they were charming and intriguing.
Setting: this was great. And I’m not just saying that because Novik specifically mentions Toronto as home to an excellent enclave (aka small community of wizards) and I’m biased to anyone who’s kind to my home city. You can tell that Novik took inspiration from Harry Potter, but she’s made something entirely new out of it. A fully realized and slightly horrifying school, plus thinking about how the magical world works outside the school.
Prose: El talks SO MUCH. Seriously, my one problem with this book was that there’s SO much introspection. Since I liked El, I had no issues with it. Also, props for this banger of a first sentence: “I decided that Orion needed to die after the second time he saved my life.”
Diversity report: so there are two main concerns against this book - an Indian protagonist who’s divorced from her heritage, and a paragraph about dreadlocks in which El was talking about the danger of monsters nesting in long hair and called out dreadlocks specifically. The paragraph about dreadlocks was actually removed from the version I read, so I found out about it later - it’s not my place to talk about whether this was inexcusable or not, though Novik has apologized. However, I am Indian, and I don’t think that El was bad South Asian representation. First, her father’s Marathi family was described respectfully and kindly. Secondly, Aadhaya is South Asian and is connected to her culture, and El is making attempts to connect to her culture through studying languages and history. Thirdly, Novik got the microaggressions that come with being brown right - every time El mentions some white person discussing yoga with her it was very familiar. I think that Novik could very easily have made an all-white story and wouldn’t have been cancelled, but that she chose to strive for representation in her works, and was held to a ridiculously high standard because of that. She would have benefitted from her sensitivity reader giving it another once-over, but that doesn’t mean this book isn’t still a great read. And this is a fantasy series with a South Asian main character - this is still incredibly rare, and I was delighted when I found out.
Credit Opinion Report: A brief assessment of the company's business state, a rating, the probability of insolvency, and the recommended loan
Credit Opinion Report: A brief assessment of the company's business state, a rating, the probability of insolvency, and the recommended loan limit are all included in the Credit Opinion Report.
Singing River Health System recognized with ‘A’ rating
Singing River Health System recognized with ‘A’ rating
Exciting news revealed this morning in Pascagoula and a testament to the hard work of our healthcare heroes on the Coast.
Singing River Health System is now ranked the head of the class. As Pascagoula and Ocean Springs Hospitals are both nationally recognized and awarded an ‘A’ rating in the Spring 2020 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade.
Over the course of about six months, the Leapfrog Group…
Send me Ⓐ and my muse will rate yours: Attractiveness:
repulsive || hideous || ugly || not attractive || unappealing || not unattractive || meh || no preference || ok || mildly attractive || nice looking || cute || adorable || attractive || pleasant on the eyes || good looking || hot || sexy || beautiful || gorgeous || hot damn || would tap that || perfect || godlike || holy fuck there are no words
How likely they would have sex with them: not if they were the last person on earth and the world was ending || fuck no! || never || no way || not likely (now)|| not sure || indifferent || I’m asexual || maybe || probably || it depends || fairly likely || likely || yeah sure || yes || would tap that || hell yes || fuck yes!|| wishing that could happen right now || as many times as possible|| were already having sex (once upon a time yes we were)
Level of Friendship: never in a million years || worst of enemies || enemies || rivals || indifferent || neutral || acquaintance || friendly toward each other || casual friends || friends || good friends ||best friends|| fuck buddies||bosom buddies|| practically the same person||would die for them||true friends||my only friend
First impression of them: I hate them so much || I don’t like them || I don’t trust them || they annoy me || they’re weird || I’m indifferent || meh || they seem alright || they’re growing on me || truce || I think I like them || I like them || I’m not sure if I trust them || I trust them || they’re cool || they’re genuine || I think we’re going to get along || I really like them ||I think I’m in love || oh fuck they’re hot || I love them (I needed to)
Current impression of them: I hate them so much || I don’t like them || I don’t trust them || they annoy me || they’re weird || I’m indifferent || meh || they seem alright || they’re growing on me || truce || I think I like them || I like them || I’m not sure if I trust them || I trust them || they’re cool || they’re genuine || I think we’re going to get along || I really like them || I think I’m in love? || oh fuck they’re hot ||I love them
How good of a kisser: worst kisser ever || terrible || bad || awkward || just okay || alright || pretty good || good || makes me moan || excellent || exciting || oh god they’re good ||I dream about it|| fucking amazing ||absolute perfection||we haven’t kissed (in centuries)
The A grade economy of Ireland reminds us of the Celtic Tiger 2.0
The A grade economy of Ireland reminds us of the Celtic Tiger 2.0
The weekend just gone provided a reminder of how far the economy of Ireland has come.The troubled days of the Euro area crisis where it called for 85 billion Euros of help from its Euro area partners and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) were replaced by this from the Fitch ratings agency.
Fitch Ratings has upgraded Ireland’s Long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs)…
