The Golden Enclaves
R**R
Read it
I doubt you need this review to persuade you at this point in the series, but I'd like to avoid the Amazon auto email. So here I go, read the book and finish out this refreshing take on magic systems and its interesting characters and grumpy protagonist. Good stuff all round ye.
J**G
Out in the “Real” World
The final book in the Scholomance trilogy breaks out of the school after El’s ‘graduation”’, after Orion pushes her out of harm’s way to deal with a maw-mouth on his own in “The Last Graduate”, and in almost all-certainty, to a doomed end.The action unfolds from that juncture as El deals with her guilt and sorrow at losing Orion, as she travels back home to her mom in a commune that is not entirely welcoming of her return.There is much danger of revealing spoilers to say more, but it is enough to say there are ground-shaking revelations about the how the Scholomance came to being, what powers the enclaves, and why it is not enough to rely on ‘mana’ to defeat the ‘malefaria’. El finds out more about her prophesied future as the cursed destroyer of enclaves, and while dealing with loss and betrayal and rejection, she finds that the survival of the entire wizarding world, in which she is shunned, depends on her reestablishing the balance.Novik triumphs in the way she is able to make the magic and the world she created in the book believable, and not in terribly complex terms. So the action does run along quite smoothly. However, I had to keep reminding myself that this is after all a YA fantasy novel, and be patient with the (to me) overblown emotions - read teenage angst - that El constantly experiences and doles out on her friends and enemies alike.All in all, this not one of my favourite Novik books, but it does give a rather satisfying conclusion to this dark academia series.
K**R
Amazing
Absolutely fantastic trilogy. Unique storyline and characters. I haven't read anything like it before. Definitely recommend., I didn't want it to end but it ended beautifully. Can't wait to read more books by this author.
A**L
A great series from the start to this end
This review is going to contain some spoilers for the ending of The Last Graduate. But to summarise, yes, buy this book, buy the whole series and consume them. That said, on with the review.So this book once again picks up right where the last one left off, with El being shoved through the gates at graduation by Orion as he turns to face off against the maw mouth Patience. From literally the first sentence I was hooked. Unfortunately I agreed with a friend that I’d hold off on reading it until he’d gotten his copy so, after reading a chapter and a half, I forced myself to lock it in a drawer. And I needed that lock between me and the book as well because just that chapter and a half I had a compulsive need to keep reading.I was interested in seeing how this could be Lesson Three of the Scholomance seeing as the last book ended with it being cheerfully yeeted off into the void. And I wasn’t disappointed. Not only does The Golden Enclaves build upon that ending it builds upon the whole series. It brought to the surface threads that I hadn’t noticed running through all the books and it did it in such a natural ways. I’m going to have to go back and reread the other books, again, because this one will change how I view them.And the twist in this book! I love the twist. I’m obviously not going to spoil what it is but when I worked it out I messaged my friend and expressed my admiration for it with a whole lot of swearing. That’s how you know it’s a good twist.I read a lot of books and the majority of them are good. But even compared to them this one is special. This is a series that I won’t just read, appreciate and forget but one that I will go back to and probably reread at least once a year. Because in the field of publishing as a whole, this really does stand out as a beacon of good writing, good plotting and an interesting world.
R**N
Not just a great story but a relevant one
Books 1 and 2 were all about the most dangerous school in the universe and how to survive it. This book is about what happens if you do survive; where you go next, and why things were the way they were. All the questions that the characters didn't have time to think about because they were fighting for their lives get addressed in this book - if you've read the first two, this one is essential.Naomi Novik has managed to write a book that is not just an engaging and fun story, but also an acutely observed and timely parable for our global situation.Somehow, she has done this whilst also keeping it a quick and easy read. The sheer skill is astonishing; absolutely hats off.I can't think of a series I've enjoyed more in the last few years. Sometimes a book ends leaving you wanting more; whilst I'd certainly be open to hearing more about this world, I'm not sure it's necessary - this is a full meal, and deeply satisfying. I am going to buy copies for other people, that's how much I liked it.Six stars. Eleven stars. ONE MILLION STARS.
A**R
Great series
Glad to add this next chapter to my collection
E**N
Perfect
Novik never disappoints S2
J**E
In which it turns out that Novik has been plotting things a LOT more tightly than we expected
The Golden Enclaves has a unique challenge among third books. In most trilogies, we know the story that’s left to complete – the rebellion’s success or failure, the fight against a Big Bad, that kind of thing. But The Last Graduate felt like an end to El’s saga – hell, as the title implies, she left school, and without spoiling the arc of book two, it feels a series wrap on the Scholomance itself. So as I started the third book, the real question was: what even is this book going to be?And then, The Golden Enclaves does one of my favorite things that a book can do: it reveals, slowly and carefully, that this whole series has been a lot more carefully and deliberately plotted than I realized, and that Novik has been playing a long, complex game to set up the knockouts here that she’s had waiting for us.Broadly speaking, The Golden Enclaves is about the world outside the Scholomance, and it continues the work that The Last Graduate did in interrogating the premise and facts of this world. And, what’s more, just as Graduate dealt with the unintended but entirely logical consequences of the end of A Deadly Education, Enclaves finds the world dealing with the ramifications and ripple effect of the ending of Graduate – and to understand that impact, it means understanding the nature of this magical world – and looking at the very dark underbelly of it all.If The Last Graduate was our heroine and her group beginning to question the system that put them in a hellish endurance test of a school, The Golden Enclaves finds them pursuing those questions about justice, fairness, social equity, and class warfare into the larger world, seeing how the choices were made that led up to the creation of a magical school where surviving is the minority, not the majority. And in the middle of this is El, whose quest for righting wrongs and eliminating the upper class enclaves that have all the power fits perfectly into the chaos that’s unfolding, but also finds her making some horrifying discoveries about the cost people in this world are paying for their safety.What The Golden Enclaves makes clear is how much this series has always been one about justice and fairness, and about how those without power and status are forced to kiss the ring to survive in the world. It’s a series about how a spoiled kid hailed as a chosen one is never treated like a person, just a tool; it’s a book about how no one cares about the outcast kids until it turns out they have something everyone needs. And it’s a series about how when you keep forcing people off the edges of society, eventually they’re going to push back.It is also, mind you, a massively entertaining series about man-eating monsters, about magical nightmares and crimes, with action sequences to spare, a sardonic narrator who’s afraid of giving herself anything she wants, a rich world that only makes more and more sense the more we learn about it. It is a series that moves like a rocket, anchored by its witty prose, its rich world, and a hell of a story to tell along the way. In other words, it’s a fantastic series – every time I finished a book, I instantly bought the next, because to hell with waiting for another one. I loved it, and I’ve already forced it on lots of people – and hopefully more with this review.
F**
LIBRO FENOMENAL.
Toda la trilogía es buena, y el libro es una buena conclusión para la misma. La capacidad de Novik para crear personajes y un trama complejo hacen que leer este libro valga la pena.
K**S
Bom preço
Bom Preço para um grande livro
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