Blurb: (From Book 1) I decided that Orion Lake needed to die after the second time he saved my life.
Everyone loves Orion Lake. Everyone else, that is. Far as I'm concerned, he can keep his flashy combat magic to himself. I'm not joining his pack of adoring fans.
I don't need help surviving the Scholomance, even if they do. Forget the hordes of monsters and cursed artifacts, I'm probably the most dangerous thing in the place. Just give me a chance and I'll level mountains and kill untold millions, make myself the dark queen of the world.
At least, that's what the world expects. Most of the other students in here would be delighted if Orion killed me like one more evil thing that's crawled out of the drains. Sometimes I think they want me to turn into the evil witch they assume I am. The school certainly does.
But the Scholomance isn't getting what it wants from me. And neither is Orion Lake. I may not be anyone's idea of the shining hero, but I'm going to make it out of this place alive, and I'm not going to slaughter thousands to do it, either.
Although I'm giving serious consideration to just one.
Review: I was made aware of this series by a blog post about the Hugo awards. The blog was passionately explaining that a student protagonist in a magic school does not automatically result in a book targeted towards young adults. The blog also explained that this series was raking in the awards under an unfair category, but given that the quality of the series never got critiqued in the rant, I thought I'd give it a go. I laughed a fair bit then when after finishing the first book, the author thanks their editor, but professed continued skepticism that the book is being targeted at a potentially non-existent group of 30 year olds instead of the standard young-adult crowd. I cannot say whether a different marketing approach would have been more beneficial, but I can confidentially claim that the editor's target demographic exists and that I am a apart of it. I absolutely devoured this series and was constantly engaged.
The series handles the standard tropes of a magic school beautifully, and paints a world of magic built around it that draws you in. The Scholomance is a wonderfully creative concept. I also appreciated that the series does not duck away from the main characters being teenagers, in that plenty of the emotions, situations, and decisions are distinctly what I'd associate with a young-adult novel. The way it is delivered is great though, and I definitely liked this work more than those I've previously read from the author. Reading through El's perspective was fun, and I'd recommend anyone looking for a magic-school type book to give this a go.