The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik
Series: The Scholomance #2
Publisher: Del Rey Books, Hardcover, 388 pages
Galadriel is used to the Scholomance having it out for her, but in her senior year it’s worse than ever. She can’t seem to get through a single day without something trying to kill her. It’s really making her plans to buckle down and figure out how to survive through graduation pretty difficult to achieve. Maybe the answer lies in going a completely unexpected route…
I still love this series, so so much. This book was very enjoyable to read and I just love to see what is coming next. I knew that something crazy was going to happen, but I did not quite expect this to take the turn it ended up taking and I am so curious to see if there is going to be some fallout from that in the next one, or what… where are we going from here?
One of my favorite parts of book one was seeing the friendship between El, Aadhya, and Liu develop throughout the story, and we get a lot more of that in book two along with the addition of Chloe into their friend group. Seeing these girls learn from each other and work together as they try to figure out the best way to survive was wonderful, and quite humorous at times. Additionally, we also get some information about tensions among different wizard enclaves throughout the world that give us a better idea of why things happened the way they did in this book, but I think it will also be important in the next one. Plus the school… it’s basically a character in its own right. How the students interact with the school and vice versa becomes really intriguing in this book.
Admittedly, I don’t think this was quite as amazing as book one across the board, but there is more of that sarcastic, dark academia feel as the first book had. The writing also kept me wanting to pick this book up and read which did keep me entertained and interested in the world, story, and characters. I really appreciate the way that everything seems to be coming together in the world as a whole. I cannot wait for book three to come out (and I can’t wait to reread these first two ahead of that release!). 5/5 stars.
The Scholomance Series:
1. A Deadly Education
2. The Last Graduate
3. The Golden Enclaves (Expected publication 9/27/22)
Among Stories 