A Deadly Education is a 2020 fantasy novel written by American author Naomi Novik following Galadriel "El" Higgins, a half-Welsh, half-Indian sorceress, who must survive to graduation while controlling her destructive abilities at a school of magic very loosely inspired by the legend of the Scholomance.
Describing the legend of the Scholomance, which inspired the school in the book, Novik stated that it "paints a truly horrible place...[spending] years locked up in the dark, with answers to your lessons appearing in letters of flame, with no teachers, no contact with the outside world.
Elite communities of wizards live in structures known as enclaves, which are far easier to defend from mals, but these are difficult to build and access to them is jealously guarded, creating a deep class divide.
Students are magically transported into the Scholomance at age fourteen and have no contact with the outside world until graduation day four years later, when they exit the school via the gates.
She comes to the attention of Orion Lake, a boy from the New York enclave who is both extremely popular because of his proclivity for saving his fellow students from attacks, and unusual due to his ability to take mana from killing mals.
A maw-mouth is an unusually dangerous mal which does not kill its victims, but keeps them alive and eternally suffering inside itself - a fate which El has particular reason to fear, since her father was eaten by one at graduation.
Although killing the mals in the reading room would give her the opportunity to show off her talents and prove that she would be an asset to an enclave, El chooses to destroy the maw-mouth and save the freshmen, despite the danger and the lack of witnesses.
El and her friends instead propose that on graduation day, a team of artificer students should repair the long-defunct machinery installed to cleanse the hall every year, an endeavour previously believed too dangerous to be worth attempting.
[3] John Young of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette acclaimed the "clear, nuanced and believable world" and the way that the story "blends some real-world situations with life in the Scholomance.
"[4] Writing for Locus, Adrienne Martini says, "Novik's light touch, dark whimsy, and sense of humor make it hard to put down.
"[6] Kirkus Reviews responded less positively, saying the book "falls short of its potential" and that "El's bad attitude and her incessant info-dumping make Novik's protagonist hard to like".
"[10] A passage in the novel where the main character describes dreadlocks as being susceptible to infestation by bug-like magical creatures was criticized as perpetrating negative stereotypes about Black hair.