As the final year students form alliances to get them through the final graduation test – a gauntlet of mals between them and the outside world - El starts to realise that she′s going to need a bigger alliance.įor a series that is full of people getting killed in horrifically ingenious ways, it is a joy to read. But the mals that lurk in the school seem to be seeking her out particularly, and somehow in spite of all her sensible survival instincts she keeps saving anyone else in the vicinity, including a gaggle of new years that she has been saddled with, as well as Orion who is not having such a good year. But the protagonist El actually finds herself in a better position than in previous years she has managed to make friends, and find a source of power for her magic, and she might possibly be dating Orion Lake, monster killer extraordinaire. There is no break in the school year, or in the many various ways that people can die.

The story picks up immediately after the last book finishes and the characters we followed before are now in that final year. This is a school where the final exams really can be final. Having survived the Scholomance this far is no guarantee that a student is going to be able to graduate. I was given an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This sequel certainly lives up to the explosive first book and I am now desperate to read the third book. But this time, El carries more guilt as she is given enclave privileges now her power has been revealed. The same themes of class inequality carry over as we see many enclave kids take their vast privileges as their due and expect independent kids to sacrifice everything while they dangle the very small chance of an enclave spot over their lives. But this time there is a more hopeful tone as El is no longer fighting to survive on her own but now has friends at her back and a plethora of allies. Once again, we are taken to the Scholomance where a horrific death is around every corner and in every shadow.

I kept having to go back serval pages to figure out who El was talking too. I will say that the fast pace and many side characters often meant I kept forgetting who was who and mixing up characters. It makes for a quick, but intense read and impossible to put down. A book that grabs you on a roller-coaster and refuses to let you off. Like in A Deadly Education, The Last Graduate is a whirlwind of a read. A fantastic sequel for a series that has become one of my favourites.

The last graduate series