The Golden Enclaves
Ratings218
Average rating4.1
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 everywhere.
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. And the first thing I’ve got to do now, having miraculously gotten out of the Scholomance, is turn straight around and find a way back in.
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3 primary books#3 in The Scholomance
The Scholomance is a 3-book series with 3 primary works first released in 2020 with contributions by Naomi Novik.
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Overall, I found the series a highly enjoyable read, once I got used to El as a narrator. I listened to all 3 books back to back in a very short period of time, so they're fairly mashed together in my head and I never had any time to build much expectation of where the story might be going. The books are far from perfect, so my rating is not to say that these are truly 5 star excellent books, but I had fun with them and was thoroughly entertained.
I have to say I wasn't pulled in like the previous book. I figured out some major twists within the first few chapters so the rest of the book became a slog waiting for the narrative to catch up. Also there were really questionable relationship decisions that occurred?? Also also a lack of Orion screen time. I did like the ending and the atmosphere of the book so not a complete dud, but leaving the magic school left some of the magic out of the story too.
Dark Academia seems to be a very in subgenre right now. The Golden Enclaves is the final entry into the Scholomance trilogy that is firmly imbedded into this genre. This story is quite different in feel to the first two in many ways though. First, El has now graduated, so the ‘academia' side is somewhat reduced in this take. Now we have El and her friends jetting round the world, visiting various of the ‘enclaves' that had been alluded to in the earlier books. Whilst expanding the world like this is fascinating in its own way, it is a drastic change of pace and scope from the confined and claustrophobic feel present in the earlier novels. And whilst El has always been defined as a crazily powerful dark wizard (potentially) this book takes that Mary Sue type feeling to even further extremes, so the sense of jeopardy is somewhat reduced.
That being said, the dynamics of the characters remain as entertaining as before. The world and its rules are fascinating in their development. It is wonderful to see where Novik takes her imagination when descibing these amazing wizarding enclaves.
In the end this book suffers a little when compared to the first two books in that it is such a different scope and feel. I miss the tension and the trapped feeling that the first books generated. This is an entertaining and well written grand urban fantasy at this point, but I think its expansion in vision actually weakens it a bit compared to the earlier books. The finale does feel earnt and satisfyingly though, so it makes a fitting end to what is on the whole great Dark Academia series
