The Golden Enclaves

You would be forgiven for looking at a pithy summary of the Scholomance series and thinking this is yet another magical school wish fulfillment story. There’s a magical school, an extra-magical misfit main character who unexpectedly makes friends, a prophecy, monsters and sinister forces. Yet, for all that, this is a tale with a spirit firmly planted in reality that bends all the tropes.

What do you do when you are the best at defeating monsters when the real monster is deep systemic injustice?

Naomi Novik is producing some of the most interesting and creative fantasy stories of this generation. They are well worth your time.

A really strong trilogy. Could not put it down once I started. The last volume had lots of surprises — magic as an eco thriller, if you will.

I think my biggest complaint about these three novels would be that the author does a lot more telling rather than showing, which I tend to dislike. There's no shortage of that in the beginning of this novel, but ultimately this might be my favorite book of the series. It finishes really strongly and I found myself more emotionally invested than I thought I would be. I can't say too much more without giving away some important plot elements, but defs recommend if you've read the first two books.

This was a decent enough conclusion to the trilogy, but not as tight as the earlier books. Things bogged down in the middle and the ending was just a little too rosy.