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3.5/5
Non-Fiction
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Recommended by Uncle Larry, and read during the weekend of my sister's Bat Mitzvah.
Rating: 3.5/5
Pages: 313
Started: 17 September 2022
Finished: 20 September 2022
Summary:
El knows she's not particularly well-liked. In fact, her fellow classmates at the Schoolomance, the institution all magical children try to survive during their teen years when they're most susceptible to monsters, want nothing to do with her. So it's fortunate that she doesn't want anything to do with them either, especially Orion Lake, golden boy, who's saved her life more times than El cares to count. But at the Scholomance, where magical education is dangerous enough without the deadly monsters who roam the halls, alliances are everything, especially when it comes to the mad dash of graduation. Despite her impressive affinity for dark magic, El is going to need to start planning in order to make it out alive.
Thoughts:
This book got better as it went on. There was a lot of expository information dumped at the reader in the first few pages, and that lumped on top of a protagonist who is plain old mean for no reason (and not in a cool way) made me nervous for the rest of the book. But the plot and world building were both a lot of fun. The Schoolomance is a dangerous place, but in its adultless depths there is so much potential for magic and learning. Despite the danger, it's definitely a place I'd love to be. On top of that, though the not-like-other-girls protagonist was annoying, there were a fair number of sweet friendships and relationships by the end of the book.
I'm not quite sure whether to categorize this book as YA or Middle Grade, since there is enough violence for an older reader but the language and protagonists maturity both feel a bit younger. And the language is quite odd--until I read the author's bio, I assumed she was Welsh, like her protagonist, and that was why some sentences took me three reads to untangle. Either way, with the way the book ended on a cliffhanger, I'm definitely planning on continuing the series.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who loved middle reader fantasy when they were younger--especially Keeper of the Lost Cities. I'm excited to give this book to my cousin when I see her next.