Fantasy, Young Adult, Fiction
Trigger Warning: Violence, Blood, Monster Gore
What’s the most perfect way to start of the spooky season you ask? Read a book about an antisocial dark witch who is trying her absolute best not to go full blown apocalyptic and wipe out her whole isolated school infested with demons and students alike.
So, if you know me, you’d know I’m a sucker for fantasy. And this book ticked all the boxes.
“You have to ration sympathy and grief in here the way you ration school supplies.”
It features a dark academia Hogwarts where there are no professors but one misstep can likely get you killed. The Scholomance is a beautiful haunting place that my mind wandered to even when I wasn’t reading. I liked the sense of urgency and the sense of danger that lurked in every page of this book. Even something simple as getting food in the cafeteria or sitting down at a table can prove fatal if the students aren’t careful. Simply because the school is infested with monsters. Monsters that want to kill them and suck the mana out of them. So, why go here? Because believe it or not, this is the closest place for young witches and wizards have to a safe place where they can learn magic and be useful in the outside world.
“I love having existential crises at bedtime, it’s so restful.”
The protagonist, El, was a dark witch destined to slightly murder everyone and basically be a harbinger of doom. And she would have been had she not been raised by the most nicest human being ever. Now, she uses her powers of evil for, well, not good, but at least, okay. She is sarcastic, angry and most of the time, is just a beautiful mess of doom and gloom. I loved her. Obviously.
“Some sorcerers get an affinity for weather magic, or transformation spells, or fantastic combat magics like dear Orion. I got an affinity for mass destruction.”
Since El, short for Galadriel, from Lord of the Rings books and not the movie as her mother described her, has an affinity towards death and destruction and the school does not discriminate between students, most of the things she learns and gets to learn are for bringing her affinity to life. Like how to raze cities, and suck the living soul of a person etc etc. Things Harry Potter wishes he could learn.
“I was reasonably sure that my one tried-and-true method of being aggressively rude wasn’t actually how normal people made their friends.”
My absolute favorite thing of our snarky bi-racial queen is that she is so accepting of the fact that she will always be a total and complete loner and that no one in their right minds will ever like her, that, she never even attempts to make any friends or allies.
Allies are things you need in the school. Like Careers in Hunger Games. Now, is having no allies a big deal? Well, there is only one way to leave the Scholomance, through the graduation hall. Much like the Great Hall of Hogwarts. Except this hall has every known monsters known to man just sitting there ravenous for wizards and witche,s eager to leave the place, to come through. It even has two lovely monsters that are, for the most part, invincible. Amazing, right?
When I read the first sentence of this book, I knew I was going to love it.
“I decided that Orion needed to die after the second time he saved my life.”
Meet Orion. The most wonderful, kind hearted, kind of bewildered, sheltered human being who has an affinity towards killing monsters. By all means, he should be an unbearable prick. He was from one of the wealthiest enclave of magic wielders- New York, had access to unlimited magic and had people tripping themselves to aid him. Thankfully, Novrik instead gives us a marshmallow who in his good and naïve soul, wanted to save everyone in his school from the Mals. How was he supposed to know that El would take it the wrong way?
“You know, it’s almost impressive,” he said after a moment, sounding less wobbly. “You’re nearly dead and you’re still the rudest person I’ve ever met. You’re welcome again, by the way.”
“Given that you’re at least half responsible for this situation, I refuse to thank you,” I said.”
I loved how genuine and organic their friendship felt. Orion following El around cause he thought she was a Maleficier and was killing students and she, on the other hand, genuinely wanted to murder him because people were assuming that he was saving her life. Which he was.
“I don’t have a very good idea of how people behave with their friends normally because I’ve never had one before. But, on the bright side, Orion hadn’t either, so he didn’t know any more than I did. So for lack of a better idea, we just went on being rude to each other, which was easy enough for me and a refreshing and new experience for him, in both directions.”
The relationship between them was the highlight of this book. There are ‘Enemies to Lovers’ and then there are, ‘How dare you turn me into a damsel in distress? I’m going to kill you in the most cruelest, most painful way possible’. And I want to dedicate a monument in Naomi Novrik’s name for giving me a book with such glorious banter. It was truly something I truly didn’t know I needed.
The book is told from El’s POV and therefore, is peppered with prickly, sarcastic, angry bitterness and brooding petulance. The one thing I hated about the book was the info dump. Like, right in the middle of a scene, there would be a description about a monster or some ancient wizard which I admit, rather grudgingly, was relevant but somehow, makes it a tad tedious to read.
“But I couldn’t just be angry at her. Obviously I wanted to scream at her and set her whole enclave on fire, but that was just habit.”
The world building, on the other hand, deserves a standing ovation. I don’t think I have ever read something like this. It was complex, fascinating and just so beautifully conjured. The layout, the functions and most of all, how the school itself is a living breathing organism that is sometimes, evil is definitely a new concept.
Another thing, that was an absolute win was how diverse this book was. El was half Welsh and half Indian. The students were from all over the world and the diversity was actually integral to the story. It wasn’t over the top nor did it feel like it was just for diversity sake.
I also loved the female friendships that existed in the book. Pure, unadulterated, female friendships with out a man being involved, or backstabbing or just general pettiness.
“Reader, I ran the fuck away.”
TLDR: Brilliant book. Salty AF Female lead, Marshmallow bear of a male lead. Enemies to lovers.
Mia's Solace 