The Last Graduate

  I spent a lot of my review of A Deadly Education (this book's predecessor) talking about how good the book felt and looked.  I will start out this review by saying that everything I said there regarding the aesthetics and feel of A Deadly Education holds for The Last Graduate.  The book looks amazing and feels wonderful to read on a purely physical sense.  With that out of the way let's get into the contents of The Last Graduate.    While the physical quality of The Last Graduate matches its predecessor, the actual text does not.  It's still a good book that will treat any fans of the first, but it doesn't feel like a true groundbreaking work the way the first book did.  If I had to point out one failure in The Last Graduate, it's that it doesn't introduce enough new things to justify its existence as a standalone novel.  Sequels can sometimes be hard to write because the intrigue of exploring a new world isn't there for a sequel the way it is for the first book in a series.  Typically authors get around this issue by simply expanding upon the ideas and concepts introduced in the first book.  The Last Graduate does not use this method nearly enough to keep the book fresh.  Like A Deadly Education, The Last Graduate takes place entirely within The Scholomance.  The Scholomance remains an awesome setting for a book, but it's a lot less intriguing when you know all about it.  Part of what made A Deadly Education so fun was learning about the weird tricks of the Scholomance.  This feeling of excitement naturally doesn't exist to nearly the same degree here.     I don't mean to make it sound like The Last Graduate is totally pointless.  Many plot threads from its predecessor are picked up and furthered in satisfying ways.  The main thing I'm talking about here is the El-Orion relationship, but plenty of other relationships are further explored.  We also see some legitimate growth from El, which is very fun to see.  The final chapters are also legitimately breathtaking up until the very last sentence (which perfectly sets up the conclusion of the trilogy).  There's definitely some good stuff here.    Ultimately The Last Graduate fails to live up to the lofty expectations set by its predecessor.  It's far from a bad book, it just left me wanting for more.