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ashley_reya's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
The masterful world building that Novik gets to display in this story was blowing my mind left and right. It truly feels like a completion to the Scholomance Series.
El, Orion, Aadhya, Liu, and even Liesel have a part of my heart with this story. ❤️
El, Orion, Aadhya, Liu, and even Liesel have a part of my heart with this story. ❤️
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, and Violence
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Body horror
sweets's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
I read the scollomance series this week and after just finishing the last book i took a shower to think about it (and wash some Maw-mouth off). After the first 2 books i thought this was going to be a 5 star read for me for i had enjoyed myself a lot during the first 2 books. Reading the last book i had prepered myself to be devestated and cry my eyes out as was the setup from the sequel however, this just did not happen for me. After reading the first 2 books i thought the story was heading for an eppic end. And yes the end was pretty memorabele but also a little bit to clean for my liking. The hole story went on a return to balace and karma route. You reap what you sow in theorie. In practice that meant i think some of these caracters should have pand a higher price. So i enjoyed the series a lot but in a world of three books that has been so torturous for our students im a little disapointed by how NICE everything wraped up.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Blood, Grief, and Death of parent
Moderate: Self harm, Sexual assault, Violence, and Murder
bookswithcuppatea's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
An extraordinary final book in the Scholomance series! We finally get to meet the families of a lot of the characters from books 1 and 2, and see more breadth of the characters we've gotten to know. El's Mum in particular, it was brilliant to finally meet her!
The enclaves are so much more complex even than I'd anticipated. El and her fellow graduating classmates are in that awkward intermediate state of being out of school but not yet being treated as adults.
So many questions were answered in this book, and yet there are quite a few plot turns that surprised me.
The enclaves are so much more complex even than I'd anticipated. El and her fellow graduating classmates are in that awkward intermediate state of being out of school but not yet being treated as adults.
So many questions were answered in this book, and yet there are quite a few plot turns that surprised me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death
Moderate: Blood, Grief, Murder, and Classism
Minor: Child death
christinereads1823's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Stellar ending to the trilogy. The major plot twist/reveal was so well done, I read it and suddenly EVERYTHING from the previous books made sense. Novik's characters leap off the page and into your heart. El, as someone who is told by the universe that they're destined to be evil and bring destruction to the world and they say no, I will do right and keep saying it over and over again, and her steadfast friends will stay with me for a long, long time.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, and Grief
pj99's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Murder
Moderate: Violence and Classism
Minor: Sexual content, Grief, and Death of parent
For those of whom grief is a very touchy triggerbeatriks's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
What can I say?
I’ll have to wrap most of my review in spoilers. Without spoiling anything, this book comes with some surprises that I liked, the world building is still amazing. El’s narration can be really funny:
I’ll have to wrap most of my review in spoilers. Without spoiling anything, this book comes with some surprises that I liked, the world building is still amazing. El’s narration can be really funny:
So I followed her back to the yurt and let Mum give me a bowl of vegetable soup that tasted like it had been made with real vegetables, which might not sound very exciting to you, but what do you know.
Overall, I had a 2 year break in between book 2 and 3, that probably didn’t help.
Good points:
The whole enclave-building principle is genius
I like the “you’re already dead” principle
Less satisfying points
The way things end in the well.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Torture, and Grief
Moderate: War
kelisabeth's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
blacksphinx's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
What the hell, Novik did it again.
I was getting really frustrated with the first half of the book. At least three times, a character would say a couple of sentences and then El would explain a ton of inferred details to us for several pages. We had some important plot threads established, and pages were ticking by with no progress being made on them. El spent a lot of time not doing a damn thing, thinking for pages about how she didn't know what to do. There was a decent chunk spent on her wanting to accomplish something I thought was extremely stupid and didn't understand her motives - and then, at almost the 50% mark, the chess pieces were finally all on the board and the game began.
I kept saying to myself "there's no way she can solve [plot thread] in [pages left]" and then she DID over and over again until I had every answer I wanted. I actually want to go back and reread the prior two books knowing what I know now, because the reveals in this book were set up long before she started drafting it, there's just no way. It is a little bit of a spoiler to say this, so just skip over it, but watching El walk away from Omelas made me cry. In this present moment of multiple genocides and an ongoing, stubbornly-ignored pandemic, it hit me just right. "You got us all out for good, and they're trying to start a war over the bones. There's a better way. We know there's a better way. And you're trying to find it."
I was getting really frustrated with the first half of the book. At least three times, a character would say a couple of sentences and then El would explain a ton of inferred details to us for several pages. We had some important plot threads established, and pages were ticking by with no progress being made on them. El spent a lot of time not doing a damn thing, thinking for pages about how she didn't know what to do. There was a decent chunk spent on her wanting to accomplish something I thought was extremely stupid and didn't understand her motives - and then, at almost the 50% mark, the chess pieces were finally all on the board and the game began.
I kept saying to myself "there's no way she can solve [plot thread] in [pages left]" and then she DID over and over again until I had every answer I wanted. I actually want to go back and reread the prior two books knowing what I know now, because the reveals in this book were set up long before she started drafting it, there's just no way. It is a little bit of a spoiler to say this, so just skip over it, but watching El walk away from Omelas made me cry. In this present moment of multiple genocides and an ongoing, stubbornly-ignored pandemic, it hit me just right. "You got us all out for good, and they're trying to start a war over the bones. There's a better way. We know there's a better way. And you're trying to find it."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Gore, Torture, and Grief
Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, and Classism
Minor: Child death, Homophobia, Vomit, and Pregnancy
whynotreadwithalex's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
I absolutely hate disliking books. It honestly causes me physical pain because I love stories and I want to love each story I come to. But every so often I pick up a book that is just too painful, frustrating, or disappointing to like — and I’m so very sad that this has been the case with The Golden Enclaves. Especially because I absolutely adored the first two books and had every expectation that I would love this one.
Unfortunately, there are a many number of things, characters, story elements, and plot choices that I found underwhelming but what really disappointed me the most was that all of the character development we saw in El over the course of the first two books was completely undone in the first half of this one, and then not adequately built back up again by the end. This left me feeling like I didn’t know her, which is not how you want to feel at the conclusion of a series. So many of the things I had come to love about her (such as her resilience, her discipline, her strong foundation of morals, and her journey of personal growth that allowed her to let people in) either faded into the background or completely flipped. She lost her voice, her passion, her ferocity, her community, her drive. And that just wasn’t realistic, interesting, or relatable for me. Not only that, but it made me really really sad.
The wrap up regarding the creation of enclaves and how that is tied to malia was interesting — but the conflict with Ophelia, the revelation of the prophecy, and the resolution weren’t enough to make up for the other ways I was really disappointed.
Finally, I love Orion. And I truly believe he deserved better. Not just from the other characters, but from the author.
Honestly, really heartbroken with this one, guys.
Unfortunately, there are a many number of things, characters, story elements, and plot choices that I found underwhelming but what really disappointed me the most was that all of the character development we saw in El over the course of the first two books was completely undone in the first half of this one, and then not adequately built back up again by the end. This left me feeling like I didn’t know her, which is not how you want to feel at the conclusion of a series. So many of the things I had come to love about her (such as her resilience, her discipline, her strong foundation of morals, and her journey of personal growth that allowed her to let people in) either faded into the background or completely flipped. She lost her voice, her passion, her ferocity, her community, her drive. And that just wasn’t realistic, interesting, or relatable for me. Not only that, but it made me really really sad.
The wrap up regarding the creation of enclaves and how that is tied to malia was interesting — but the conflict with Ophelia, the revelation of the prophecy, and the resolution weren’t enough to make up for the other ways I was really disappointed.
Finally, I love Orion. And I truly believe he deserved better. Not just from the other characters, but from the author.
Honestly, really heartbroken with this one, guys.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Bullying, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Mental illness, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
ivi_reads_books's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
A brilliant ending for this trilogy. Full of twists and turns that I did not see coming. We finally learn how the Scholomance came about.
The book explores themes such as balance, destiny, friendship and fairness
The book explores themes such as balance, destiny, friendship and fairness
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Violence
Moderate: Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, and Classism