2022 in books: #6, A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
Hello! Feel free to skip this italicised section if you’ve read any of my other 2022 wrap up blogs!
A little bit of background: since the 6th grade (14 years ago!) I have had a personal mission I call “The Million Page Project.” This has taken the shape of paper logs, excel sheets, blogs, websites and most recently — an increasingly active twitter handle that talks sporadically about books and incessantly about all my other random thoughts.
The goal is to read a million pages before I die. Why? Because my 6th grade teacher set a challenge to the school to collectively read a million pages in a year and I — knowing nothing about scale — was like hmm, I could probably do that alone?
The number I’ve gotten to so far is 163,480 pages or 454 books (as of Dec 22) for anyone who’s wondering. But to be more honest, it’s not about the number — it’s just a way for me to do something I love and catalogue it. As I read, I try to review the books in my own sprawling way to capture how it made me feel, and that’s what I’ll be sharing here. It’ll have spoilers, no coherent summary of plot and often the character names will be missing. But what it will have is a whole lot of heart!
My sixth recommendation, in no particular order: AA Deadly Education by Naomi Novik, which I read in February post two other books by Novik (all good, very different from this one though):
Clearly I was on a Naomi Novik roll. I feel like nowadays I have found it so hard to find new books to read that when I find an author I like I try to read all their books. Because there’s some kind of precedent where I know I’ll like their style. But it’s pretty funny because this book was so different from the first two Novik books I read! The first two were very fairytale and old-worldy but this one, though it also dealt with magic, felt so contemporary and young and fresh. Which brings me to my favourite thing about this book: Galadriel.
Damn, an A+ narrator. The fact that so much of this book is paranoia and fight scenes and yet I was never bored really should speak volumes — this kind of had that zingy feeling of a really funny deadpan main character which I remember I used to love about Meg Cabot books. But it’s so hard to make your main character this spunky without it feeling gimmicky or getting annoying — and a lot of the books I drop because of style actually boil down to the main characters’ annoying internal monologue. But Galadriel was such a compelling character!
I love the premise for her powers, I love how fiercely she loves her mother and how she’s an unreliable narrator in the way she tricks herself but it doesn’t make you upset or think she’s dumb — you’re genuinely rooting for her and when she discovers things about herself, it feels really earnt.
Unexpectedly, it also had amazing insights about meritocracy? I really didn’t expect that going into the book but it was a great theme and it wasn’t just for fluff, she really truly grappled with it in an interesting and insightful way. The idea that they let in ‘indie’ kids to act as armour and die off as padding around the enclave kids? Shit. I really want to think through how that works in real world colleges — do we maintain that selectivity and cutthroat competition by opening the doors to people who aren’t supported by the same resources as more privileged kids so they can act as cannon fodder for legacies and priviliged kids to continue being in the top 10%?
I also really loved how loneliness was treated in this book — though in the beginning you might just take it for granted, the scene where she sits down at a table by herself after Orion is called to his friends? It made me SO SAD. It was such a visceral feeling, that heaviness behind her eyes as she waits to see if anyone will sit with her. It really truly broke my heart. I remember once being a new kid and we were assigned seats and someone switched seats to go sit with her friend and I felt so so horrible because I was sure it’s because she hated me. I know now that we had literally just sat down so it couldn’t possibly be about me but in that moment, I felt so much shame and anger and sadness. And this cafeteria scene made me think of that because it just felt so real! I wish we could keep all kids safe in our pocket instead of subjecting them to each other because sometimes they can be so. mean.
Also, I obviously have to talk about Orion. Honestly so cute — just their whole equation. How she keeps feeding him while throwing verbal daggers at him and how he’s so clueless but so into her.
Overall, great read. Great premise, original execution, characters and relationships that really drew you in and kept you invested. So excited for the last book to come out!
