A Deadly Education

I tried reading this book last year, but I couldn't really get into it. However, I picked it up again to give it another chance after being recommended to do so by a friend, and I loved it. I felt that starting again gave me the chance to properly visualize the scenes taking place, and allowed me to actually enjoy the book.

The majority of the first two or so chapters consist of mainly world-building and descriptions. I think this may have been the reason for my dnf last year, but this time I found it to be an interesting part of the book as it made the whole narrative a lot more personal and detailed. This did make the beginning of the book seem quite slow-paced, which I was not the biggest fan of, but once the plot started in earnest, I couldn't stop reading.

Galadriel was brilliantly written, although I didn't really like her character. She did seem very self-aware and conscious of the advantages/disadvantages that came with being in an enclave, unlike the oblivious members that were born into the privilege, but she didn't try to help herself until nearing the end of the book. This was quite annoying, as she would complain about the enclave kids, and then be horrible to everyone when she ended up speaking to them. I understand that she uses this as a sort of defense mechanism against other people's perceptions of her. They are all intimidated or scared of her, so to protect herself, she plays up to this to hide her loneliness.

Again, Orion was brilliantly written, and I didn't like his character that much either. I thought that he was trying too hard to be everyone's saviour to please his enclave. I also think that his sudden taking interest in Galadriel was a bit suspicious and that the whole relationship seemed a little off-putting and strange (this is furthered by the note from El's mum at the end). He was more tolerable than Galadriel, but only barely. They seemed to continuously go through miscommunication which could have easily been avoided, and I thought it was quite irritating.

The friends that El made toward the end of the book were probably my favorite characters. Aadhya and Liu were both somewhat reasonable and didn't feel the need to act like heroes or villains, they were just normal teenagers getting through a strange schooling experience and trying to get the best out of their time there.

I really liked this book, and although I didn't necessarily like the characters, the story was written extremely well, making it one of my favorites this year so far. I will definitely read the rest of the trilogy and I look forward to doing so.

★★★★