Naomi Novik

The one thing you never talk about while you're in the Scholomance is what you'll do when you get out. Not even the richest enclaver would tempt fate that way. But it's all we dream about, the hideously slim chance we'll survive to make it out the gates and improbably find ourselves with a life ahead of us, a life outside the Scholomance halls.

And now the impossible dream has come true. I'm out, we're all out--and I didn't even have to turn into a monstrous dark witch to make it happen. So much for my great-grandmother's prophecy of doom and destruction. I didn't kill enclavers, I saved them. Me, and Orion, and our allies. Our graduation plan worked to perfection: we saved everyone and made the world safe for all wizards and brought peace and harmony to all the enclaves of the world.

Ha, only joking! Actually it's gone all wrong. Someone else has picked up the project of destroying enclaves in my stead, and probably everyone we saved is about to get killed in the brewing enclave war on the horizon. And the first thing I've got to do now, having miraculously got out of the Scholomance, is turn straight around and find a way back in.

A Novel

The Golden Enclaves

Katheryn

Intent doesn't matter, she'd say, when you've really injured someone else. You need to be open to their pain and anger if you're ever to make things whole between you. 

Jiji

The tea was even offered exactly in the same way that Americans always did it, namely with the faint hint that they didn't really understand why I might like some tea, but they understood that this was the appropriate thing to do.

Saving the world is a test no school of magic can prepare you for in the triumphant conclusion to the Sunday Times bestselling trilogy that began with A Deadly Education and The Last Graduate.

The one thing you never talk about while you're in the Scholomance is what you'll do when you get out - not even the richest enclaver would tempt fate that way.

But that impossible dream has somehow come true for El and her classmates. And what's more, she didn't even have to become the monstrous dark witch she's prophesised to become to make it happen. Instead of killing enclavers, she saved them, and now the world is safe for all wizards. Peace and harmony have enveloped all the enclaves of the world.

Just kidding.

Instead, someone else has picked up the project of destroying enclaves in El's stead, and everyone she saved is at risk again with a full-scale enclave war on the horizon. And so, the first thing El needs to do after miraculously escaping the Scholomance, is to turn straight around and find a way back in.

Lesson three of the scholomance

Julia Rutgers

But that's like seeing a picture of a tree, and then actually climbing up in the tree with the branches going every way, the rustle of leaves and the smell and the bark under your fingers scraping and the wind going, and a thousand trees all round your tree, none of them being special and dramatic, just trees, and your tree was also just a tree being a tree, and the picture you'd looked at might be perfectly nice as its own flat thing, interesting and pretty and well composed, but it didn't have much to do with the reality of the tree.

Rina

My appearing didn't lift their spirits - it rarely does - and only added the extra layers of faint hope and unease.

Sophia 

"I can see you're very angry," he said, demonstrating he possessed all the observational abilities of a dead stick. 

 I didn't argue. Maybe I'd known all along that they would come with me, and ľd only told myself that I'd stop them because it was horribly selfish to drag them along, and so I’d had to pretend I wasn't going to do it. I imagine it's always easier to do something monstrous if you can convince yourself you aren't going to, up to the last minute, until you do.

"Make yourselves at home," Balthasar said, an invitation to go on and stab myself in the chest, just as I liked. 

“Just do me a flavor and don't come back through our doors. It's not the place for you."

 "Where is?" I said, sour as turned milk, and I turned my back on her and headed down the tunnel, past the sign with the arrow pointing EXIT.

God I fucking LOVED this series. I forgot how good books can be damn.

Amelia Hruby

Jennifer Gosnell

** spoiler alert **
           What a way to wrap up this series. Loved the twists and turns! Loved the characters and all of their challenges. Loved being in El’s head. She’s such an awesome heroine and a unique character. I really didn’t (view spoiler)[ anticipate a happy ending for Orion, but I’m so glad there was one. I also cried during this multiple times. For Liu. During the grandmother reveal. And during Orion’s mawmouth extermination. I really thought he was a goner. Lol. (view spoiler)[ Anyways. Loved this series. Loved the themes. Just incredible.  (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)]

Lindsey Arenson

3.5 stars. My least favorite of the series, but kinda expected some re-adjusting due to a scene change. Still entertaining, glad we got answers to questions that have been plaguing us since the first book. A satisfying conclusion.

mic shulman

Jessica Lord

Banger^3. Lots of interesting twists and turns that shake up major series elements.

Chase Leitner

This series. I cannot speak high enough of it. I’ve loved reading El’s sarcastic narration of the outlandish escapades of a bunch of wonderfully powered teens surviving in a woefully hostile environment. I love the grumpy/sunshine story of ‘I’ll knee you in the balls’ responded to with ‘Oh, El, I love you so much.’ As with most of Naomi’s work, no notes.

Emily McMeans

Amazing end to the series, everything came together in ways I couldn't have imagined including loose ends I hadn't even really noticed in the other books

Lara Engle

The first half of the book was super slow. At the end of the second book in the trilogy, I had all kinds of predictions about what might happen in the third and I wondered how they would fit it all in. Well, I was mostly wrong in my predictions, but things did finally start thing together and the pace picked up. Now that the trilogy is finished, I'm going to miss these characters.

Fun read like the others. I really like the universe and a lot of the ideas being played with.

Katy Watkins

Much better than the previous two books, but still has pacing issues. 

Jenny Ramsay

Das furiose Finale der Dark-Fantasy-Trilogie

Scholomance - Die goldenen Enklaven

Difficult. On one side I just love the writing, story, setting and characters. Actually all of it. 

But this third book is different to the other two. I think the author should have taken more time for this one and given the story more space & pages. It is repetitive and at some points a bit confusing, because some things were not described as wonderful as in the other books. Still, you got to love El and her friends. It is still worth it.

Anthea Schuler

Difficult. On one side I just love the writing, story, setting and characters. Actually all of it. 

But this third book is different to the other two. I think the author should have taken more time for this one and given the story more space & pages. It is repetitive and at some points a bit confusing, because some things were not described as wonderful as in the other books. Still, you got to love El and her friends. It is still worth it.

I have mixed feelings about the book. Don't get me wrong I love a happy ending but it seemed almost wrong. All the emotions and build up of Orion being dead TWICE and then it never happened, I love Orion so I don't think I'm being biased. And it just feels almost wrong to have the school brought back. Otherwise, the pacing was a bit off in parts, I felt the beginning was very slow and dragging whilst the exciting action and parts I wanted to know more of were lacking.

All in all, I did enjoy this book and it's a satisfying ending to the series but it could have been more

Kira Del Caro

I have mixed feelings about the book. Don't get me wrong I love a happy ending but it seemed almost wrong. All the emotions and build up of Orion being dead TWICE and then it never happened, I love Orion so I don't think I'm being biased. And it just feels almost wrong to have the school brought back. Otherwise, the pacing was a bit off in parts, I felt the beginning was very slow and dragging whilst the exciting action and parts I wanted to know more of were lacking.

All in all, I did enjoy this book and it's a satisfying ending to the series but it could have been more

Apiecalypse Jen

Golden Enclaves

I am so gutted this series is over. This was incredible! 

Honestly the world building and the lore is so well thought out and interesting that I just wanna stay here forever. I love El’s POV and her narration so much and god this was just a great ending to the series. I feel like I can’t say much or I’ll spoil it!!

I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this book bc when I read the 2nd I assumed it was a duology but how the last book ended just??? Screaming! The plot of this one was honestly so so interesting, I’m glad there was a 3rd book and I just have no words…none…just my god please read this trilogy please!

grace richards

The entire series is a 4.9 but for the last book in this trilogy I had to take off a point. The last quarter of the book or so felt a tad rushed and the worst trope to me was the ending which caused me to not like the way this book was wrapped up. I’m hoping Naomi adds a 4th or novella to this storyline. All in all El is an amazing narrator and POV and Naomi is one of my favorite fantasy writers of all time

Macy M

Zahra 

En comparación a los dos primeros libros, este último ha sido muy meh. Las primeras 200 páginas han sido tan infumables y pesadas de leer que he tardado literalmente 2 meses en hacerlo, pero menos mal que la última mitad me ha gustado muchísimo porque no quería dejar esta saga sin acabar :)

WOW. What an incredible ending for this trilogy. The book was full of unexpected plot turns. I couldn’t be happier with how it all turned out. I loved every moment of this series! 

Seher Mohsin

Briar Rose

There were some odd and unexpected choices made in the writing of this book. When I got to about 90% of the way through, I panicked a bit internally, thinking to myself, “There’s not enough time to wrap everything up!”, and that thought ... wasn’t entirely wrong. The storyline I cared about the most did get wrapped up, though, and the writing was beautiful and impossibly gripping as always, and El remained a spiteful furious hope-gremlin, so I deem it a four-star read despite the sometimes questionable bits.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

(view spoiler)[I’m sure other people will mention this, but there’s a weird cheating? possibly cheating? thing going on in this book. It’s not really clear exactly how El and Orion defined the thing between them or how exclusive it was supposed to be, but does seem strange that she never even mentions the other relationship to him.

El and Orion are separated for a lot of this book. Like, a lot. He kind of falls out of the narrative, and it’s weird, and that’s part of the reason why I panicked a little when I made it to 90%. Once he finally showed back up, that storyline did get more or less resolved, so I’m willing to let it go. Still an odd choice, since El and Orion and their relationship and the way they mirror and change and save each other seems pretty firmly the foundation of this series to me.

Final quibble, SPOILERY FOR THE ENDING: I’m not sure I can buy that Orion would forgive his mom quite that easily. If he had been her only victim, sure! Except she murdered an entire Scholomance class. She slaughtered a large group of children, on purpose. Orion, self-sacrificing hero Orion, nobody’s-dying-on-my-watch Orion? He’s supposed to forgive that, literally the instant she shrugs and goes “Sorry or whatever,” and then refuse to hear another word about it? Bleh.

Now for the thing I loved:

Once there was a dark sorceress designed to destroy, and instead she shrieked “FUCK YOU, EVERYBODY LIVES” into the face of the void while flipping the bird with both hands. Once there was a boy crushed and shattered and then revived with an insatiable monster at his core howling its eternal hunger, and he gritted his teeth and bent that hunger toward protecting others and chose to be kind without asking anything in return.

Fantastic, unforgettable characters. (hide spoiler)]

The Golden Enclaves is a great wrap up of the Scholomance trilogy. It isn’t the perfect happy ending but it feels more real. Or at least as real as a world full of magic could be. There is issues of power and control, ethical dilemmas and what humans are willing to sacrifice for safety and comfort. If you want a love story it’s not it. I have a few smaller issues with the overall plot but love the book. I felt like I could understand the world of magic with ease.

Katy Schwarz

Satisfying ending to a very engaging and earnest trilogy.

The Golden Enclaves A Novel

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