Wednesday, November 30, 2022

The Golden Enclaves (The Scholomance #3) by Naomi Novik

The Golden Enclaves is the third book in Naomi Novik's Scholomance trilogy. I liked the first book a lot (4.5 stars!), but the second book left me feeling less than impressed (2.5 stars). What is this book going to bring us?

In the first book, we meet El at an evil magical school where she meets some fellow misfits. In the second book, she and her allies manage to defeat the school, but at a huge price for El. In this book, El is wallowing in grief at home when she suddenly becomes aware that enclaves around the world are falling and people are dying. Off she goes to save the day.

There were some bright spots in this book. I liked seeing how wizards live outside of the school. I like spending more time with El's mom. I really like El's pet mouse.

But boy was the rest of this boring. I just kept falling asleep after reading ten pages. So much teenage angst, which is appropriate for the YAness of it all, but not appropriate for me, a grown ass woman. (There was also a point where a character is mourning the death of someone she had just said "I love you" to, but immediately jumps into bed with another character. Fine. I get rebound sex. Then, it turn out the original someone isn't dead, so she sleeps with him, as you would. BUT THEN she sleeps with the rebound sex person AGAIN. Not a mention about protection from STIs, either.)

Plus, the ending was unsatisfying. I don't want to spoil anything, but I don't feel like anyone is happy and there's legitimately no confrontation between El and the Evil Villain of the thing. *heavy sigh* The first book in this series was very promising.

2/5 stars

4 comments:

  1. Wait. I can't believe how fast you read! That Cormoran Strike book was over 1000 pages, and you just kind of sandwiched it between a bunch of other books. Anyway, too bad this series kind of fizzled out- the first book did sound good.

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    1. Well, I read fast, am unemployed, and have a lot of time on my hands. LOL.

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  2. LOL. Love those pens. We don't do stockings here, but this is a fun selection of gifts.

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  3. Oh no... I really wanted to read this series and was saving it. I have the first book on the shelf and wished for the other two fro Christmas - which I didn't get. So maybe I should just start and get them from the library. I love this author so I figured you can't go wrong with owning the books.

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