Reviews

I’m fully obsessed with this series, especially listening to the audiobook… had to abandon my TBR after this one ended on such a cliffhanger! Straight on to book 3!!

jenpaul13's review against another edition

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4.0

The new graduating class begin making final preparations and plans to survive the ritual, but the Scholomance has other things in mind in Naomi Novik’s The Last Graduate.

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The new senior class of the Scholomance assume their place as the next in line to graduate, and their odds of surviving the ritual seem to be greater thanks to their efforts to repair the cleansing mechanism before the last class graduated; however, while the magnitude of mals lurking throughout the halls and walls has diminished, it appears that El has become a primary target for those that remain from Orion’s thorough hunting, especially as she’s the only senior in a classroom full of freshmen. As alliances form and shift, slowly they and any individualistic survival priority are shunted aside to encourage the survival of as many students as possible with El becoming a unique and powerful leader among her peers. The forces they’ve been fighting against, the school and what it puts in their path, is actually what they are fighting for in addition to their very lives – everything that the school throws at them, and El in particular, has been in an effort to correct a corruption to the Scholomance’s purpose and mission, despite not being clear to the students until the last moment as they escape to the world beyond the school, where they’ll face unexpected, new challenges.

With a narrative that jumps right back in to continue the story’s trajectory as if it hadn’t stopped, the students of the Scholomance continue facing a variety of perils that come at them, which provides refreshed intrigue and action to follow; while the story continues as if there hadn’t been a break, there are recaps throughout the text to aid reader recollection of what had taken place or how the magical world functions, through it doesn’t detract from the flow. While this second book presents some new challenges with brief spurts of activity peppered to keep the story moving forward there’s a general lull in action and the text has more digressions that slow the pace down as El ruminates, which can make it difficult to remember what initially sparked that rabbit trail thought; however, the detail provided does demonstrate that there’s significant thought and consideration to the background of the world and characters writ large. El exhibits great emotional growth as a character, while still retaining the basic essence of her prickly personality, which was enjoyable to see her change in some ways but remain steadfast in others. And the cliffhanger ending; while not unexpected in the least it’s frustrating given the emotional investment built in the last third of the book, especially what occurred immediately before the concluding action and words, to have to leave the story (for however long until you pick up the next book).

Overall, I’d give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.

madelineghite's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring fast-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

4.75

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