First impressions review: A Deadly Education, by Naomi Novik
This was another witchy book recommendation from my college best friend – and I should have taken it earlier, because I enjoyed this more overall than ‘War Witch’. Both are first-person narratives focusing on a character who clearly has some trauma. In this case Galadriel, better known as El, is a student in a very dangerous magical school who has a penchant for the dark side that she’s really trying not to tap into. I was a bit put off by the first chapter – “Oh, god. One of these annoying trying-to-be-clever-and-cynical teen narrators…” - but as the book goes on El’s storytelling gets much funnier as we get to see her interactions with more characters and her own character growth.
A lot of tropes get subverted or re-worked in this book, which I am absolutely here for. First, El is essentially an anti-chosen-one. She would be almost effortlessly good at being an evil sorceress (as she jokes later, living up to her name in the “All shall love me and despair!” way), but she doesn’t actually want to draw on dark magic (malia). She therefore has to struggle quite a lot, doing push-ups or (horrors!) crotchet-work to build up mana magic instead, and trying to pick school projects that won’t turn into some kind of weapon of mass destruction just because she’s the one who made it!
Which brings me to the school itself. I feel like the Scholomance is probably inspired by comments about how ridiculously unsafe for children Hogwarts is, what with moving staircases, basilisks in the walls, giant spiders in the forest, and so on. But what if that was the point? ‘Deadly Education’ is classed as dark academia, but the situation the students are in is closer to a post-apocalyptic world than is typical for that genre. There are no ivy-league-chic tweed jackets and plaid skirts here. Students are frequently extremely grubby because the school is infested with monsters that try to kill them; when their clothes get torn or burned or covered in goo they can’t go buy new ones because they can’t leave the building, and even taking a shower requires a buddy system due to what might come crawling out of the drains. And there are no adults to help out – the school itself just gives you books or moves rooms around according to its own eccentric whims. Why would anyone send their kids to this school where 3 out of 4 die before graduation? Because young wizards between 14 and 18 are tasty treats for monsters, even outside: Old enough to have come into their powers, but too inexperienced to defend themselves. The Scholomance actually decreases the death rate by a substantial margin. Now that’s dark!
El’s “nemesis” early on is Orion Lake, because he keeps charging in and saving people from the monsters – which El grumbles just leads to hungrier monsters – and has gotten a reputation for saving her too, which is seriously annoying. She needs to be respected for her own talents, because otherwise no one is going to invite her to join their group for graduation (to survive the gauntlet of malia) or their sheltered enclave afterward. The grump/himbo dynamic is delightful. As opposite as they are, they both have the experience of not being treated as people, just as “the hero” or “the dark angry one”. Basically it is my favorite “drama goth + sunny do-gooder” pairing, only without the romance...for most of the story, anway. As is often the case with the “drama goth”, El is a better person than she likes to admit, and Orion has flaws, mostly relating to not thinking through the consequences of his actions. El makes self-destructive decisions a lot of the time, especially early in the book, but you understand why. She is used to people judging her and not liking her, and even though she knows she should make an effort to make allies it is hard for her knee-jerk reaction not to be: “Fuck you, I’ll look after myself.” She does make other friends as the year goes on, though, and it is interesting to see how they learn to use their powers in creative ways and to combine their strengths. The book ends on a bit of a cliff-hanger, though, as she gets a note from someone on the outside that she trusts telling her not to associate with one of her new friends…but it doesn’t explain why.
There was a lot of online debate about this book’s handling of diversity. Apart from a couple of ill-advised sentences on what hairstyles are safe that did come off a little accidentally racist, and which have since been removed – what authors should do when that kind of thing comes up, by the way - I think Novik did a decent job. There are students from a wide variety of countries and ethnicities at the school, and no comes off as a superficial stereotype. El is half Indian, and some people thought she should have reflected that more but, as other children of immigrants pointed out, she was raised in Wales by her white mom! Of course she isn’t so in tune with the other side of her heritage! Some people also didn’t like the fact that she is really grubby and smelly at the start of the book, but it clearly isn’t meant to be drawing on a stereotype. El points this out because she doesn’t like it; she is forced to go a long time between showers because she doesn’t have enough allies to watch her back when she uses the bathroom.
Personally, I appreciated that the character who came out of nowhere to make valedictorian is Latina; that’s kind of the opposite of the lazy stereotypes some other authors would have pulled out for her (eg. being the sassy one, or – God forbid – the one who gets pregnant). Though no one, except El, being able to remember which Latin American country she's from is accurate! Also, while people often overlook this as a component of diversity, there is a definite class dynamic to the school. Students from powerful enclaves come in with more resources and allies and are more likely to survive than independents like El…but Orion, as one of the luckiest among that privileged class, can’t initially see that truth. El is super aware of it, and that makes it hard for her to suck up to the enclave kids, even though she reasons that it would be the right strategic move, because she feels in her bones that the system shouldn’t work like that. I wondered if Novik was British, because that's El's main cultural background and class is more frequently included as a theme in the works of fantasy authors from the UK like China Mieville or Terry Pratchett. But no: She was born in New York…so hooray for American authors starting to go there (again)!
Overall recommendation: If you think you’re tired of the magical school trope or the overly-serious dark academia vibe, or if you just like watching well-matched characters bicker with each other…give this a try. I would have included this as an “it oughta be a movie” review, but reportedly there is already something in the works. Fingers crossed that the film does this justice!
