5 stars for The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik!
Synopsis:
In Wisdom, Shelter. That’s the official motto of the Scholomance. I suppose you could even argue that it’s true—only the wisdom is hard to come by, so the shelter’s rather scant. Our beloved school does its best to devour all its students—but now that I’ve reached my senior year and have actually won myself a handful of allies, it’s suddenly developed a very particular craving for me. And even if I somehow make it through the endless waves of maleficaria that it keeps throwing at me in between grueling homework assignments, I haven’t any idea how my allies and I are going to make it through the graduation hall alive. Unless, of course, I finally accept my foretold destiny of dark sorcery and destruction. That would certainly let me sail straight out of here. The course of wisdom, surely. But I’m not giving in—not to the mals, not to fate, and especially not to the Scholomance. I’m going to get myself and my friends out of this hideous place for good—even if it’s the last thing I do.
I read this book a while ago and just couldn't bring myself to write about it. My book hangover was LARGE and in charge, but now I think I've gotten to the point where enough time has passed and I can finally form some coherent thoughts about this book...and that ending!
The Last Graduate was one of my most anticipated reads of 2021. That's right, 2021. As I said, I read this a while ago, ha. Sometimes a book I'm really looking forward to falls flat and I'm devastated, but luckily this wasn't the case with the second volume of the Scholomance series. Since I was already familiar with the world, it was easier to fall into the story and characters this time around than with the first book. I was also pleasantly surprised by myself that I remembered a lot more from the first book than I thought I would. I am not a re-reader and I usually just rely on either my memory being jogged while reading the next book or reading helpful reviews from other book bloggers to remind myself what happened previously. However, this does not always work (looking at you Dark Age) and I end up being clueless pretty much the entire time.
To write this post, I'm leaning heavily on the notes I wrote in my book journal. The first line a wrote was "I've been emotionally scarred by the ending of this book." Haha. I stand by that statement and I really need someone else who read it to message me so we can still talk about it. 5 months later and I am still not over it!
I'm not sure if anyone else agrees, but I liked book 2 more than book 1 (and I liked book 1 a lot!). While it was nice to come into book two already understanding how the Scholomance works, it was the character development that made this book a 5 star read for me. You could see El start to change and grow in book 1, but her amount of growth is outstanding in every way this time around. She's gone from an outcast to the person people are listening to. She's gone from being all alone to having a core group of actual friends who care for her and even more surprisingly...whom she cares for in return. She's going out of her way to protect a random group of freshmen and basically everyone else at the school. Is she happy about it? No, of course not. She would not be our El, dark queen of destruction, if she was happy about it. But it's definitely caused her to change and, dare I say it...envision a future for herself and her friends. Aad, Lui, Orion, and the rest of the school continue to add to the complexity of the story and give it the extra layers it needs. Plus, I 100% want a familiar like Aad, Lui, and El. I get really jealous every time a book has a familiar in it.
At one point in the book, El, Aad, and Lui pull all the snacks they've managed to save together to make a lackluster yogurt parfait. I have a yogurt parfait pretty much every morning for breakfast, albeit mine is way more appealing than there's and then again, I'm not trapped in a magical school where everything is trying to kill me. So I guess for their sake, beggars can't be choosers. I picked a yogurt parfait for this post not just because it's my weekday breakfast of choice, but also because it was a great friend moment, and those used to be few and far between for El. It was a simple thing for most people, but a major moment for El.
Thanks for stopping by!
-Kim
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