The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik

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The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik
The Scholomance #2
Published by Del Rey on September 28, 2021
Age Group & Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Representation: biracial protagonist (half-Welsh, half-Indian), Chinese major character, Indian American major character, Thai side character, Arabic side character
Format: eBook
Source: Library

The specter of graduation looms large as Naomi Novik’s trilogy continues in the sequel to A Deadly Education.

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.

Trigger & Content Warnings: death, blood, vomiting, fire, attempted murder

At this rate, Orion and his [tries his absolute best but still failing] hero complex is a whole comedy and one has to wonder if that’s the true reason I’m reading this ramble known as El.

I’ve been wanting to read The Last Graduate since I finished A Deadly Education, but I just kept putting it off repeatedly. I’m not fully sure why, but my biggest guess would be the writing style, which was also something I had an issue with in the first book. Before I started, I knew I had to be in the right mood, and that turned out to be over a year later.

The second book in The Scholomance trilogy starts right off from the first, where the graduating seniors have made it out successfully with the help of El, Orion, and some of her classmates.

Now El’s in her final year, and she’s gotten a note from her mother that came with a new incoming freshman (and also outed her as the daughter of a famous wizard) to keep away from Orion, but she’s not sure why she’s getting that advice — she’s more worried about how she and her allies are going to get out of the graduation hall alive, especially with the school itself seeming to be out to get her. But really, it wants something from her, and this second book follows El as she tries to figure this out.

One thing I looked forward to reading in this one was El’s character development, and she definitely undergoes one throughout the book.

When we first meet El in the first book, her narration is a very stream of consciousness and lecture-like, almost like she’s a bit clinical and dismissive. She’s still very stream of consciousness here and a bit clinical, but over the course of the year the book takes place in, we see her grow from someone who wished to lay low and just get through graduation to someone who’s invested in everyone’s survival. El’s very much a reluctant hero in the making, and we see this a lot in The Last Graduate.

I also appreciated while El changed, she’s still herself at the core and not turn into an entirely different person, like some books end up doing. I truly loved the bond that continues to grow between her, Aadhya, Liu and Chloe as they get closer to graduation and continue to form plans as allies, and I loved seeing them grow as individual characters as well.

Novik further expands the world with The Last Graduate, and there is a lot of information, especially with the discussions regarding class and privilege between the enclaves both outside and within the school. Like the first book, I felt like my brain practically exploded with the amount of information about the world. But I especially like how class and privilege continues to be examined through El’s lens, which was another thing I looked forward to: she goes from someone once disregarded by everyone else to suddenly getting all the privileges that she didn’t think she’d ever have, including a guaranteed spot with an enclave.

I’m honestly glad I waited as long as I did to get around with continuing The Scholomance trilogy. The Last Graduate is well-crafted and a strong follow up to its predecessor — it might end up being a year from now before I pick up The Golden Enclaves, but I’m definitely looking forward to picking up the conclusion to this trilogy.