5 fabolous stars!

I'm legit crying over how good this book was. I had to physically stop myself from devouring it in a single sitting because I wanted to take my time savoring it like a good piece of chocolate. I was trying to save this book to read later on, but after sitting on my bookshelf for 10 days, I was sick of being patient lol. Naomi Novik did it again with her fantastic storytelling and world-building. She is, without a doubt, one of the best voices in fantasy in modern lit.

The worldbuilding and the magic were a bit clunky at first. But after a few chapters, I started to understand and enjoy it immensely. There is a hugely diverse cast of characters, the mc El Higgins is a biracial, half Welsh half Indian heroine. She was easily the best part of the book. El made it hard to put this book down. Strong, complicated, and wonderfully developed, El was a delight of a character. She is easily one of the most interesting YA morally gray heroines I have ever read. I loved how Novik handled her inner struggle between her affinity for death and destruction vs her desire to not harm others and to just be seen for who she actually is. Naomi Novik has always been amazing at constructing strong female characters, and El is definitely up there with Miryem and the rest.
Orion Lake was a bigger part of the book than I had expected, but his and El's enemies-to-best friend relationship was lovely. I do hope to see more of his character development as he wasn't much 3D, despite the amount of scene time he got.

The ending was definitely a cliffhanger which I had not expected at all, but I welcomed it wholeheartedly for the spice lol. I am eagerly looking forward to the next book in the series. Read this book if you love Dark Academia, fantasy, anti-heroes, strong female characters, and magic schools. Considering that this was among my most anticipated reads for 2020, it exceeded my expectations easily. Believe the hype.

Second Read:
Loved it just as much as the first time ❤❤