as well, including Muro, an orphan boy Oats befriends, and even Oats’ giant war pig, Ugfuck. Oats’ poignant journey of selfdiscovery, in particular, will have more than a few readers weeping by novel’s end. One of the most original fantasy sagas to come along in years; like Tolkien on a bender.
THE LAST GRADUATE
Novik, Naomi Del Rey (400 pp.) $28.00 | Sep. 28, 2021 978-0-593-12886-2
A teenage witch with a natural affinity for dark magic prepares to run a deadly graduation gauntlet in this sequel to Novik’s Deadly Education (2020). Galadriel “El” Higgins has finally reached her senior year at the Scholomance, putting her one step closer to her ultimate goal: get back home or die trying. After getting a sneak peek at the monsterpacked hallway she must survive if she wants to graduate, the witchy teen returns to her classes and cliques with scarcely more insight than before. El knows enough to realize that her mana stores are a fraction of what they should be—come graduation, she will lack the magical juice she needs to kill monsters and make it out alive. Her fake-dating relationship with Orion proves to be a lucky “in,” netting her a new string of tenuous alliances as well as access to a wellspring of free mana. But what could be a compelling adventure story falls apart here, as the novel relies on relentless bouts of infodumping to keep readers up to speed on where the Scholomance’s monsters come from and what they can do to unsuspecting students. None of these paragraphs-long blasts of information recount the details of El’s last excursion, however, and so readers who have forgotten Novik’s previous novel, or who have never read it at all, will find no springboard ready to help them dive into the author’s newest offering. Those who stumble upon this volume risk being unmoored, as the narrative picks up immediately following the events of its predecessor, without stopping to introduce anything, including the narrator. Ultimately, El’s seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of every monster in the school, combined with her continued refusal to enter into any genuine alliance with classmates, leaves readers to wonder what she could possibly have left to learn—or fear—in the Scholomance. A sequel that repeats the mistakes of its predecessor while failing to break new ground.
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1 august 2021
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NO GODS, NO MONSTERS
Turnbull, Cadwell Blackstone (350 pp.) $26.99 | Sep. 7, 2021 978-1-982603-72-4
In the first of a series, the monsters who have always lived among us emerge, endangered by prejudice, doubt, and at least one deadly, ancient cult. Laina mourns the death of her estranged brother, Lincoln, lost to drug addiction and killed by a cop. Then a mysterious person sends her a video of the incident, which shows Lincoln transforming from wolf to man. When Laina tries to share the video online, the unedited version soon vanishes from the internet. Someone has revealed that animal shifters, witches, and other supernatural beings exist...but someone else seems dedicated to obscuring—or exterminating—that truth. As these so-called “monsters” consider the dangers of becoming more public, their allies must decide whether they, too, will take a stand and risk themselves as well. Calvin, a man with the power to move along the timeline of any parallel universe except his own, serves as a semiomniscient and flawed first-person witness to these events, even while greater powers observe him. As in Turnbull’s first novel, The Lesson (2019), the otherworldly aspects of the story act as a lens that brings the characters’ richly depicted lives and complex relationships into sharp focus. Despite her eldritch origins, it’s easy to sympathize with Sondra, a senator from St. Thomas and secret weredog, who longs for her missing parents and both loves and resents her adopted sister, Sonya, a blooddrinking and usually invisible creature hiding many secrets. The struggles of Laina’s girlfriend, Rebecca, a werewolf who has faced many losses and made many mistakes, are absorbing, as are the struggles of Laina’s husband, Ridley, an asexual trans man yearning for his parents’ approval even as he devotes himself to improving society through cooperative enterprise. This is a deeply human story, beautifully and compellingly told.
