For those of us who have waited anxiously for the next installment of the Scholomance series, The Last Graduate has arrived at long last. When last we saw El and her schoolmates they were at the end of their junior year and dreading Graduation Day. There are no O.W.L.s to sit for - although they do have to complete senior projects and there are exams at midyear. What they need to fear is fighting their way past all the maleficaria waiting to attack them in the Graduation Hall.
El's situation at the end of the first book seems very similar to that of Spencer Gilpin at the end of "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle." She is heading into her senior year and at long last she has friends, a possible romance, and some hope. "It felt...As if the whole world had become a different place. But it hadn't. I was still in the Scholomance, and all the miracles in here come with price tags."
All the alliances and deal-making that have gone on until now are kicked into high gear by the deadline looming ahead of them. And it is not just the mals waiting at the end of the year that El needs to worry about, because it seems that the school itself is out to get her. Her schedule has her in small class sections with none of her friends, the mals that are making it past the school's wards seem to be seeking her out to the exclusion of all the other students, and she is terribly behind on replacing all the mana she expended last year.
Readers will feel as though they are running the obstacle courses in the school gym along with the seniors as they struggle through the continually mounting difficulties of getting out of the school alive. El still has a bit of the dark Galadriel mystique clinging to her, especially when she casts spells that "hung in the air just long enough to make a fashion statement of the behold your dark goddess variety." And Novik keeps the suspense strung out to the very last sentence, so that we gasp our way to the gates of the Graduation Hall still unsure of what will happen.
Perfect for fans of magical fantasy that includes prickly heroines, peculiar monsters, and incredible world building.
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