Welcome to Litsy!

I felt so-so about the first book in the Scholomance series but I decided to give this second book a try, especially since it fit a couple of challenge prompts that I was finding hard to fill. I enjoyed this installment more, perhaps because I'm finally warming up to the characters.

#SchoolSpirit @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @Eggs
#Graduation

Enjoying a lazy start to the day...just my snuggle buddy and me. It is supposed to be hot this week so I look forward to last of snuggle time.

This book suffered from middle book problems but was still interesting and well written, just not as much as the first.
El wants to save all the students at the school and decides to work with unexpected allies to make the world safer.
3.5/5 read for more world building, LOTS of character growth, but not much movement plot wise compared to the 1st and 2nd book. Warning : Cliffhanger ending get the 3rd book at the same time

I still am really enjoying this series. The first half of this book was around a three for me because it felt a little regurgitated. A lot of the same from the first book and talking about the same things as the first book. But, the second half was a five. Was new and refreshing and everything I was enjoying in the first book. Even more character development and magic. The ending had me literally dying. 4/5

Picture at a weird angle to show off those sprayed edges! 😁

I LOVED this!!! El is just an amazing MC and Novik does a fantastic job developing and maturing her character throughout the story. I loved every single side character, including the school. I'm so glad I waited until all three books were out before reading this though - that ending!!! I'm jumping straight into The Golden Enclaves!!

I saw this while looking up fan art. El seriously cracks me up sometimes, she‘s so me. Like imagine having magic, but you had to fold laundry or do push ups just to access it… I‘ll do it but I‘m going to complain the entire time! 😂😂

The squad 👯‍♀️👯‍♀️ I love them so much! Liu and Aad got me tearing up 🥲

Oh my lanta.. This was significantly better than the first book for me. Everything I loved about ADE is amped up in the sequel. The stakes get higher and the relationships get deeper the closer everyone gets to graduation. I liked El even more- she‘s extremely relatable no matter how snarky she can be. This is a slow burner with an extremely satisfying climax and one hell of a cliffhanger. Have the third book ready! 4.5/5

Holy crap, people. What an absolute BURNER of a book. I‘m literally breathless from the finish, which also happened to be a huge a horrific cliffhanger & I am SO GLAD that the third book is already out. Everything wonderful about the first book — the world building, the characters, the action, the plotting — was just magnified tenfold and thrown at the reader to keep up with. I loved it & absolutely rec this series for fantasy lovers of all kinds.

Picking up the second in the Scholomance series for my next read. Really looking forward to seeing how senior year treats El…

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.
I really enjoyed book 1 in this series and the voice in this is the same, really distinctive and different from Noviks‘s other books. Huge long sentences without taking a breath and lots of diversions mid-point. It takes a bit to get used to, but if you‘ve read book 1 (and you do need to start there) then it works.
Plot wise I was sort of unsure what was going on till about 60% and then I really got hooked.

Galadriel and her new friends have managed to survive their lower years at their deadly wizarding school and are now seniors. Their final year is the toughest yet, requiring intense preparation for graduation and escaping monsters hellbent on killing them. Will they make it out?

ORION

I love how Novik keeps up a rollicking pace and manages to make me care so deeply about these characters while also feeding me a huge amount of information about the world and keeping them very realistic teenagers. Amazingly realistic considering El is a budding supervillain and Orion is pretty much a superhero!

Book 2 of Naomi Novik's Scholomance trilogy was just okay for me. I want to learn more about the main character and the dire prophesy and I still want to know what her mom has against Orion Lake. But, the never-ending fighting was nothing short of tiresome to read about. If I had been reading rather than listening I might have bailed. I do have book 3 on hold, but I'm giving myself permission to DNF it if I'm not loving it.

That ending! Can‘t wait for book three.

Continuing the re-read, this second book in the trilogy takes everything I love and gives me more. More world development, more character finding their place. Our narrator is more capable and the world gets more complicated to match, without undoing or undercutting any of the growth that's happened so far.

Spent the weekend in a quiet cabin and caught up on my reading🥰 this series is cruising right along and I‘m glad that the third one is out so I can go pick it up and finish the story! The author has a knack for cliffhangers and I‘m looking forward to what she has in store for El, Orion, and the rest of the Schoolmamce

Enjoying my reread of the tagged book on this chilly evening in preparation for finally reading The Golden Enclaves!

Plan for today: #audiocleaning

Phew, the sequel had even more action and excitement! The characters all grew on me, and I really liked many side characters too. Now I just have to figure out how to get book 3 as soon as possible.

#TheScholomance #NaomiNovik

As El‘s senior year kicks off, it seems like the Scholomance is dead set on her not staying alive until graduation.
As her alliance with Aadhya & Liu grows stronger and her relationship with Orion becomes more complicated, El is forced to realize the Scholomance isn‘t trying to kill her. It has a special task for her.
Finished 1/5/2022

Come ONNNN Naomi with your cliffhangers! This one would have pockets of drag for me, but it didn‘t take away from the story, just made for inconsistent pacing. She does a great job making your body have the perfect reactions to what is occurring and since you have bonded with the characters, it makes it that much better. Still recouping from the heart pounding rush. Looking forward to the final book!

This was SO GOOD. Not just for a second-in-series, but in general. Novik‘s usual stellar writing, fantastic characters that have just continued developing from the first book, a nonstop action-packed story, and monsters, monsters, monsters.

I am extremely happy that I waited until the 3rd and final book was out because that ending was just a mean, cruel cliffhanger, and that took a star off my review. 😂

Really great on audio, too.❤️

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

That ending was insane! Now I have to read the third book. Well played. If you like monsters and magic, you'll probably have a good time with this. It is very creative, angsty, and action packed.

Reread via Libro.fm audiobook before The Golden Enclaves releases! Since my first read, The Last Graduate won the Lodestar Award for YA lit at the Hugos 🥳 Anisha Dadia is just a fantastic narrator and I love her as El, so if you‘re considering the audio, I highly recommend it!

I just didn‘t love it and there is so much to like about this book (and series)—fantastic premise, interesting characters, great worldbuilding, good writing and yet, I don‘t love the way in which Novik, whose Uprooted is one of my favorite books, is telling the story. Somehow it just doesn‘t work and I found myself skimming quite a few pages in the middle. I‘ll keep reading for all the reasons listed above & just hope the telling gets better.

I‘ve had this book on my shelf…well, ever since it came out. 😬 Just haven‘t gotten to it but having just accomplished the rare and remarkable feat of winning the Hugo—as a middle book in a trilogy!!!—and with the final book in the trilogy coming out next week, I think now is the right time to start reading it.

📩 July 13th, 2022
Yessss! Just the 2nd book of the series that I needed :)
I think I literally devoured the book and would literally spend every free moment wanting to know what happened next! I saw coming the end of the book, but it still surprised me while reading it.
My librarian told me the third comes out in September… I can't wait!!

Book two in The Scholomance series. This was really enjoyable although I did find some of the interior monologue got repetitive in the middle. This was made up for by so many monsters (!!) and a really good depiction of how group dynamics shift and change. I‘m really looking forward to Book 3. If you liked Gideon the Ninth you might like this series - slightly softer on the scary bits and more YA though.

#AlphabetGame @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
#LetterL

My favorite "A" book is The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik

There are a few others worth mentioning:
The Last Emperox by John Scalzi
The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell
Lethal White by Robert Galbraith
The Locked Room by Elly Griffiths

These books cover a lot of different genres.

I also absolutely loved this book, like the first one! The ending surprised me (but it wasn‘t unpredictable), and I can‘t wait to read the next one. I believe the story could wrap up nicely in the third book, while also offering a few twists to keep us entertained. We‘ll see!

Currently reading courtesy of my local library! 🥰

Waiting for Novik to write something that isn‘t practically flawless! Second books in a series are always tough, but this one nailed it. It went in an unexpected but wholly satisfying direction (until that last paragraph - GAHHH 😩). Recommend this for anyone who enjoys a dark, introspective fantasy that pulls no punches, emotionally or otherwise. Really going to struggle with the wait until September for the last installment!

Loving this book but know it‘s going to absolutely destroy me at the end. Finally warm enough to be back outside at my very favorite reading spot 😎🍇🍷 #vineyardreads

I don‘t even know where to start. I‘ll start off with this: I AM NOT OKAY. Now that that‘s settled, I really loved the entirety of this book (though the ending was cruel) and loved reading the interactions between the characters. I highly recommend this book to everyone though I warn you: you‘re probably not ready for this.
5⭐️

“There‘s no such thing as normal people,” I said, a desperate flailing. “There‘s just people, and some of them are miserable, and some of them are happy, and you‘ve the same right to be happy as any of them—no more and no less.”

It was only fair, after all: if I was making them jump through all these hoops, just so I could be a hero, I had to be a bloody proper one, didn‘t I?

Everyone else would have taken it, not because it helped the gaping wound in their side, but because when you had nothing, you took what you could get.