Novik dazzles in her brilliant and compulsively readable final Scholomance fantasy, which picks up immediately after the events of The Last Graduate. Galadriel "El" Higgins has successfully trapped 92% of all wizard-hunting monsters, or mals, in the magical boarding school Scholomance, now her alma mater, and led her fellow students to safety--all except for her enemy turned true love, Orion Lake. El's desperate attempts to save Orion from a fate worse than death in the belly of the same "maw-mouth" monster that ate her father can't succeed unless she gets power from the enclaves, groups of privileged wizards living in protective pocket universes. However, several enclaves have mysteriously vanished into the void, the powerful London enclave is under attack, and the New York and Shanghai enclaves are on the brink of war. To save Orion, El and her classmates must first save the world they have struggled so hard to rejoin and a future threatened by dangers built into the foundations of the enclaves themselves. This exquisitely well-crafted work engages deeply with genre classics like the Lord of the Rings and The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas while offering up its own detailed and original world full of clever parallels and a fascinating magical catch-22. Novik beautifully closes out El's and Orion's character arcs, paying off on groundwork laid in previous installments, and her focus on hope, resilience, and collective action makes this finale as moving as it is satisfying. This is a knockout. (Sept.)

Having escaped the Scholomance, El Higgins returns to Wales to mourn the loss of her love interest, Orion Lake. The maleficaria that hunted El and her Scholomance classmates are now attacking wizards across the globe, and malevolent forces seek to destabilize the wizarding world from within. El's bereavement is cut short when former classmates and elite wizards call upon her destructive powers, turning the prophesied destroyer of enclaves into their potential savior. Novik's third "Scholomance" book (following The Last Graduate) leaves the confines of the deadly academy, introduces, a host of new characters, and illustrates how wizard society functions within the world's most powerful enclaves. Series fans won't miss a beat, but the worldbuilding, much of which is conveyed through El's inner monologues, may be too dense for new readers. Narrator Anisha Dadia excels at voicing British Indian teenager El, infusing the dialogue with sarcasm and frustration. She also displays considerable range, performing an entire cast with distinct voices and accents. VERDICT Should satisfy Novik's many fans and appeal to mature fans of Harry Potter, dark-fantasy lovers, and those who enjoyed Lev Grossman's The Magicians.--Andy Myers

After graduating from her monster-infested high school, a young witch determined to overcome her inclinations toward dark magic finds that she alone can stave off wizarding society's collapse. After spending the last four years of her life locked up in the Scholomance--a school carved from interstitial space where mages' children go to hone their craft--Galadriel "El" Higgins returns to the real world heartbroken. Following their run through a gauntlet of monsters in a grisly graduation rite, her fake boyfriend--turned--true love, Orion, shoved her through the Scholomance's magical exit and did not follow. Fearing that Orion has been eaten by a maw-mouth--a creature that hopelessly traps its victims in a painful, never-ending dying process--El sets out to end his suffering forever. Getting back into the fallen Scholomance requires a huge supply of mana, as does killing a maw-mouth, and so El must first journey to the world's most powerful wizard enclaves in search of allies. This globe-trotting adventure quickly turns into a slog, however, as triumphs and tribulations flatten under the weight of exposition and poor pacing. Much of Novik's attention here feels severely misplaced. Rare moments of tension resolve too quickly for readers to feel their impacts, and the novel founders as El continues the infodumping habit previously seen in A Deadly Education (2020) and The Last Graduate (2021), sucking the narrative pacing dry with long-winded explanations that touch on everything from other characters' motives to her own powers. We learn a lot about one interesting character only to have her promptly disappear from the story for good. El's two sexual encounters with a female frenemy serve no purpose in developing either the characters' individual stories or the narrative as a whole. An enemy El assures us is "an evil monster" earns her redemption with little to no explanation, and everything readers already know--from the way El memorized her friends' phone numbers to the purpose and value of mana--is bound to be reiterated again and again. A high-concept adventure that doesn't think its readers are clever enough to get it. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.