Book Review: A Deadly Education, by Naomi Novik

[inverarity]

All shall love her and despair in a Darwinian magic school published in the Darwinian YA fantasy genre.

Comments

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[shortysc22]

So I feel this is incredibly accurate review of A Deadly Education. I couldn't finish the book because I got so annoyed at El and the lack of information given to the reader.

I'm really hit or miss with Novik's work. I saw her at a talk and liked her personality so I figured I'd give her books a chance. I finished the first Temeraire book but didn't really have the desire to read more. I loved Uprooted but also couldn't finish Spinning Silver.

[selenite]

Thanks for covering that book. I'd been considering it as I did like the first three Temeraire books and some of Novik's fairy tales. This one is not for me.

I agree with your comments on the YA subculture. They seem positively eager to go into a feeding frenzy at the first drop of blood.

[madcossack]

Thanks for the review.

That's why I've started avoiding YA fiction sometime ago.

Re. Novik and Temeraire series, I stopped after China. You are spot-on about her boring writing.

"...the horrific "Maleficaria" who ooze out of the corners..." reminds me of Dario Argento's Suspiria.

[vielerseits]

After loving Uprooted, finding Spinning Silver okay and avoiding Temeraire, I read this one - and I agree with everything you said. I thought that he extremely long-winded explanations of the world and personal history of El were written too much like game instructions; there wasn't any attempt to melt them into the plot but more like "random cue"->"very long sequence of explaining exactly the magical or mechanical functioning of this or that detail"->"plot continues seamlessly after an uber-rational explanatory interruption by an otherwise quite irrational main character who constantly acts against her own cold hearted calculations".