Please Note:  I received an advance audio copy of this book from Penguin Random House Audio in exchange for an honest review.  This did not influence the opinions in my review in any way.

Synopsis (from Goodreads):

Lesson One of the Scholomance

Learning has never been this deadly

A Deadly Education is set at Scholomance, a school for the magically gifted where failure means certain death (for real) — until one girl, El, begins to unlock its many secrets. There are no teachers, no holidays, and no friendships, save strategic ones. Survival is more important than any letter grade, for the school won’t allow its students to leave until they graduate… or die! The rules are deceptively simple: Don’t walk the halls alone. And beware of the monsters who lurk everywhere. El is uniquely prepared for the school’s dangers. She may be without allies, but she possesses a dark power strong enough to level mountains and wipe out millions. It would be easy enough for El to defeat the monsters that prowl the school. The problem? Her powerful dark magic might also kill all the other students. 

An Apology:

When I read A Deadly Education, by Naomi Novik, I listened to it as an audiobook.  Which is one of the reasons that some very disturbing aspects of the book went straight over my head.  The other reason has to do with my not being tuned in enough to catch these racial stereotypes in the first place.  That has to do with my own privilege.  The controversy has to do with the author describing some hair as dreadlocks, and saying that these are frowned upon at the school because they get magical lice that can grow into monsters.  There are other racial stereotypes that the author used, as well, particularly that El, the main character who is South-East Asian, never washes.

When I am being honest about it, I think I would have been more attuned to this if the stereotypes had to do with Hispanics, as I am Mexican-American.  I get really riled up when I see/hear stereotypes about Hispanics being lazy, dirty, or illegals.  When I hear these sentiments, it gets my blood boiling.  I need to do better to be just as outraged when these things happen to other groups.  And for that I am truly sorry.

For her part, the author, Naomi Novik, has apologized for these issues.  She has promised to remove these passages from future printings of the book (will she change the audiobook, as well?).  But I am surprised that no one at Penguin Random House Audio or the print publisher, Del Rey Books, noticed these issues in the first place.  She said that she did use a sensitivity reader, but perhaps she needs to look at her own perceptions of South-East Asians and ask herself why she used these descriptions in the first place.  Perhaps the author needs an "Education" more than her characters.

Given these problems, I am revising this review.  While this was an entertaining novel on the surface, we don't need yet another book about a magical school where only white, good-looking people are the obvious heroes.

Review:

A Deadly Education can be described as a cross between Harry Potter and The Hunger Games.  The setting is a magical school, but that is where the Hogwarts comparison ends.  The Scholomance in this book is actively trying to kill the students.  And no one thinks this is a bad thing.  In fact, students will be expected to fight their way out of their graduation ceremony, or die trying.  This was totally weird and unexpected.  Unfortunately, the novel also uses racial stereotypes that are extremely offensive.  To be honest, I didn't catch on to this when I first listened to this audiobook.  And for that I am truly sorry.

What I Liked:

Setting:

The deadly magical school is much like Hogwarts.  There are vanishing rooms, magical laboratories, and monsters in the dark corners.  But there are no teachers.  Students have affinities which the school knows about.  They are provided with knowledge as they need it.  It's the ultimate independent study situation!  All the strange ways students gained knowledge was so fun.  If you open a book in a dead language, suddenly, you need to learn it.  And you can't move on until you do!  Highly motivating.

Characters:

This book is basically about high school.  And there are the many types of students who might populate any typical school.  There are the popular, rich kids, and their hangers on.  And there are the losers, and chief among them is our main character, Galadrial, or El for short.  

El started life with a prophesy that says she would bring destruction to the world, which made most of her family reject her.  So she has a huge chip on her shoulder.  Everyone assumes she is evil, and El does nothing to counter it.  I think she has been hurt so often, she has built an armor of unpleasantness so she won't get hurt.  She just expects the worst. Unfortunately, this makes her miss several opportunities for friendship.  It was kind of heartbreaking that she couldn't recognize kindness in others.

This is her starting point.  And while she never loses her blunt approach to her peers, she does, eventually learn about friendships. 

I also loved the main male character, Orion Lake (think of Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter).  He is so annoyingly good.  Nearly a Chosen One.  And El is NOT impressed.  He knows how fortunate he is, and feels deeply guilty about it.  Which is his main motivation for jumping in to save anyone who is in trouble.   El is the only one who isn't falling all over themselves to fawn over him.  This makes El utterly fascinating to Orion.

I loved their interaction and chemistry.  I was so fun to see how both of them find the other a confusing mystery.

Narrator:

Anisha Dadia  has a lovely, British voice as the narrator.  I enjoyed how she made El continuously annoyed and sarcastic.  And she has a lot of fun with the other characters.  Orion comes off as rather clueless if someone does something unexpected.  

What I Was Mixed About:

Story:

The story starts out with the characters in their junior year of magic school.  So we miss the wonder (and terror) of their first year of school.  This means there is a lot of exposition so we can understand the rules of this world.  Sometimes this can be tedious.  But it also means that we get straight into the action.

The monsters who will attack the seniors at graduation (a given) have started attacking students early.  This means all the students must escalate their preparations.  They need to create weapons, spells, and alliances in order for them to survive.  They need to create and store manna (life force) if they have any hope of survival.  But they must to walk a fine line between preparing and going evil.

The story is also about El furiously trying to strategize her survival.  It's hard to enter an alliance when everyone thinks you are already evil.   El begins the story only thinking of others in terms of how useful they might be to her.  This is one of the things that holds her back.  That, and her incredibly poor people skills.  

All the scheming and planning makes this book really fun and exciting to read.

What I didn't Like:

Racial Stereotypes:

Although I didn't catch them at first, it was pointed out to me that many of the descriptions about El are racist.  And upon reflection, I get it.  There are many references to El being dirty, and there is a deeply disturbing section where she describes dreadlocks (which should be referred to as locs) as getting magical lice.  Although the author has apologized, I believe this would be very offensive to readers, so I cannot recommend this book.

Rating: 

Release Date:  September 29th, 2020

Author:  Naomi Novik

Audio Publisher:  Penguin Random House Audio

Narrator:  Anisha Dadia 

Audio Length:  11 Hours

Print Publisher:  Del Rey Books

Print Length:  336 Pages

Genre:  YA Fantasy

Source:  Penguin Random House Audio

Format:  Audiobook

Recommendation:  A very different take on the magical school trope.  Sadly, there are several hurtful racial stereotypes that are used, and I cannot recommend this book.