The Golden Enclaves by Naomi NovikMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
The last thing Orion said to me, the absolute bastard, was El, I love you so much.
The Golden Enclaves takes off with this and is a superb conclusion to the Scholomance trilogy. The most satisfying aspect, to me, is to see El and Orion's character arcs complete and stable, making space for each other. Naomi Novik has done a few fantastic fairy tale retellings before (Spinning Silver and Uprooted), but in my head I think of this story as The Beast and the Beast retelling - where, spoilers, neither is a Beast, not really. A perfect short quote that made me think of this again - But they'd loved Orion only in exactly the same way they'd hated me. Neither one of us were ever people to them. He just made himself useful, and I refused to. I loved that their character arcs started in very different places and have been complementary to each other, evolving beautifully since the first book.
El's snarky sarcastic sassy voice brings it's own unique flavour to this book, and series; her thoughts and analysis just makes her more relatable to me though the exposition might be too hyperactive for some people. Novik writes masterfully - of complex young adults in one layer, of a brilliant fantasy tale in another and of moral philosophy as the foundational layer. The premise of the series, as El finally recognizes in this book, is paraphrasing the trolley problem - is it okay to save many people by sacrificing one person? And what are the consequences of this decision?
Everyone has to decide for themselves, and El more than anyone as she's a budding dark sorceress (a tertiary order entity really). Intent and belief are more important than the words of any spell, and El finds that she has to keep deciding to not be a dark sorceress every step of the way as she races from one place to another. Because once she takes a step down that path, it'll be so much more difficult to stop. The story is paced well, weaving together action, magic and all the good intentions behind the worst politics.
The intricate magic system and the world-building also support the central question of this series; it dwells not just on the mechanics of the magic, but more on ephemeral concepts like overarching balance in the universe, hard earned mana and easily stolen malia.
Overall, a definite recommendation to pick up this series!
Scholomance #1: A Deadly Education Review
Scholomance #2: The Last Graduate Review
Thanks to NetGalley, Naomi Novik and the Random House publishing group for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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[One star for the premise and the whole book; One star for the characters; One star for the writing; One star for the story; One star for the world-building - Five stars in total.]
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