MAGICAL DARK ACADEMIA!? A Deadly Education Book Review & Reading Vlog

hey guys my name is Iasmina and welcome back to my  channel in today's video i'm going to do a reading   vlog and review of a deadly education by naomi  novik this is the first book in a new way fantasy   series called the scholomance and this was a very  hyped book for everyone else but also for me and   i'll get more into why in a minute it came out at  the end of october i pre-ordered it because i was   very excited before i even received it i started  seeing reviews of other people who have already   read it the reviews were not good guys which  made me very sad and confused about this book   however i want to read it i bought it now so  i definitely want to read it so naomi novik   wrote uprooted which i loved i loved that book i  read it years ago and i loved it and i also have   another book by her called his majesty's dragon  which i haven't started yet but again that's   sort of like classic fantasy and i'm very excited  to read that so i have very high hopes about this   because it's naomi novik but again since the  reviews that are coming out aren't that great   i don't know i want to talk about the reason why  i picked this up because i think it's a little bit   different than other people's reason just to clear  you guys in this is a magic school book and the   show romance is a dark academy a dark magic school  which already to me sounds great however what   sounds even better and the reason i picked this  up is because it's based off of romanian mythology   the sholomance is a romanian mythology i'm  romanian hi if you're new to my channel when   i first heard about this book coming out i  was very excited because there's not a lot of   books inspired by romanian mythology directly  like there's a lot of books about dracula and   vampires the original word in romanian is called  solomoneria that was the name of the school but it   got changed into a german word which is solomon's  so these days it's kind of known as the sholomance   school the sholomance legend super quick summary  of the sholomance legend since we don't know that   much about it the solomoneria or scholomance was  a school of black magic located in the mountainous   region of romania called transylvania the school  was deep underground and was allegedly run by the   devil it enrolled about 10 students who would  become the solomonari the students would learn   magic over the course of seven or nine years and  their final task would be to transcribe humanity's   entire history into a book called the solomonar's  book you might also be familiar with scholomance   from the world of warcraft dungeon by the same  name where this school teaches necromancy to its   disciples i'm gonna read this book i'll film  clips every now and again when i have something   to say about it as i read it but otherwise i will  come back at the end with a wrap-up and review   so stay tuned for that and just fyi i'm gonna  try to keep this as spoiler free as possible   because this is a newly released book and so if  you want to read it i'm not gonna discourage you   from reading it so yes let's move on to the  reading vlog of a deadly education okay so   i'm four page literally four pages into the book  and the name of the main character is galadriel   as in lord of the rings galadriel um okay okay a  bit weird but fine so i'm about 70 pages in and   i don't really like this main character so far  she's very frustrated and it makes me frustrated   and she's so negative about everything i mean to  be fair that is this is a school that is basically   trying to murder its students there is a lot of  attacks from random things which is fun i really   am enjoying all of the random things that attack  them but i don't like the main character and there   is so much telling there is so much telling of  the world building and the background of this   character and i don't really like that very much  i prefer when world building is done in the scene   and you let the reader figure out what's happening  and figure out the world building from the scene   but this is literally just pages and pages  of telling it's done with voice and i think   maybe that will distract some people from  understanding that that is info dumping   so i don't know if it's done on purpose that it's  done with such a because the voice of the main   character is very strong she has a very strong  voice and by that i mean very annoyingly she just   complains all the time about everything but that's  how the world building the info dumping is done   as well but it's just so much of it it kind of  bothers me because i just want to see the actual   scene i want to see the characters interacting  with each other and fighting these creatures and   like doing the things and not just read pages  and pages of info dumping so that's where i'm   at so far but i am enjoying the sort of idea  behind and i am enjoying like i said the school   murdering students that's fun that is uh that is  a fun concept okay so i'm about 150 155 pages in   i'm so disappointed in this oh my gosh  it's just so much telling this is still   so much telling it has not gotten better in that  regard and i just feel so sad because this really   has the potential to be really good this there's  some moments in this that are actually really good   but it's bogged down so unnecessarily by all of  this world building i still don't like the main   character i think she's really annoying she's so  ungrateful and she's just complaining all the time   i'm really sad i'm genuinely sad this is not a  twilight situation like i genuinely want to like   this and i i'm trying to find crumbs of it to  like and there are there are crumbs there are   definitely crumbs but you can't just have crumbs  when the whole thing is supposed to be a full   meal can't just like the crumbs  that that defeats the purpose   so i finished it i finished deadly  education my feelings have not changed   however i am going to gather my thoughts and make  a more coherent review all i can say right now   is that i'm glad it's done it wasn't bad it was  just a disappointment which is almost just as bad okay so here we are at the final thought slash  review of a deadly education by naomi novik and i   mean i think you could tell from the reading vlog  that i was definitely disappointed in this book   but let's talk a little more in depth about what  i thought about it so in the end after i finished   it i gave this 2 out of 5 stars on goodreads and  in goodreads terms that equates to it was okay   which i can agree with because it wasn't i  don't want to say it was bad but there were a   lot of things i did not enjoy about it but there  were at the same time some things i did enjoy   this book made me chuckle a few times throughout  what i really like about it is aid the premise   like i said i love this idea of the shoulder  mount and of this school that is so dangerous   to its students and tries to kill its students i  loved all of the creatures that we saw throughout   the book and all the things that attacked the  main character i also loved that it was a bit   whimsical and kind of ridiculous to an extreme  that was very on purpose and i kind of like that   because i like having humor in my fantasy  and i feel like this was very self-aware   in parts where it was so ridiculously extreme  that it kind of made fun of itself in that sense   and i really enjoyed that i also liked that it  was diverse or at least it tried it tried to be   diverse there were definitely students from all  over the world all kinds of ethnicities different   languages were spoken and talked about in  this book so in that sense it definitely   tried to be diverse i know it didn't completely  succeed and i know there are some issues with   some of the way certain cultures were described  from my perspective i liked that at least it   tried to be diverse but then the things i didn't  like i really didn't like and i already mentioned   most of these first of all the character galadriel  or l i get why she was written this way i really   do but it drove me up the wall i think she was so  obnoxious she was so ungrateful for everything and   especially for the other character who was just  being nice to her and always trying to help her   and she hated him or at least she pretended  like she hated him every single step of the   way no matter how many times he saved her no many  no matter how many times he tried to be nice to   her she was still an [ __ ] to him and i didn't  appreciate that again i understand why she didn't   understand why she was written this way but i just  think it was not done in the best way possible   she did not enjoy anything about being there and  of course i mean yes it's a school is trying to   kill you but you know she was there for a reason  but she did not enjoy anything about the school   at all i feel like a lot of the world building  like the folklore and the creatures were   kind of taken from stuff like dungeons and  dragons or world of warcraft or these sort of   fantasy worlds so it wasn't like everything was  completely unique there were some things that were   definitely unique that i've never heard about  before i've never read before so i really like   those things but then other kind of magic systems  and again like creatures mostly like monsters   i feel like i have already seen in different media  mainly dungeons and dragons but aside from that   my biggest issue and the thing that i complained  throughout the reading vlog about was the over   explanation of everything and the info dumping the  endless endless info dumping that just seemed so   unnecessary so unnecessary and so extreme and  again it was kind of hidden it was trying to   hide itself within the voice of the main character  but in my opinion it didn't work it was just way   too overexplained and it kind of took away from  what was happening on the same note i feel like   there was a lot less action in the book and just  a lot of info dumping so the ratio of info dumping   to actual scenes that we were part of was very  skewed towards info dumping there was a lot of   things that could have been shown instead of told  like scenes that we were shown and told about in   the book by the main character instead of actually  being in the scene and seeing these things happen   which you know is one again one of the basic sort  of concepts of writing is show don't tell and   while there is definitely place to tell and not  show this again i feel like just went you know   into one extreme i really like this concept i  think it could have been done really really well   it's just that this particular instance of it  wasn't and i know it's gonna be a trilogy so i   might give the next books a go just because i feel  like maybe she will listen to some criticism and   maybe she will improve in the next book because  again i feel like the whole premise is really cool   but at the same time if the character if  the main character doesn't really change   so much then i'm probably still not gonna like it  but i am willing to give the sequels a go at least   but yes i think that's everything i'm going to say  i don't really want this video to be too long but   i did want to talk about this book because i feel  like it was very hyped up and then yeah a lot of   people didn't like it and i kind of bought into  the hype to be honest and also like i said in the   beginning because i had a more personal reason to  be interested in this book but ultimately yeah i   didn't enjoy it very much and i was disappointed  but if you guys have any more recommendations on   this general type of story like dark academia  yeah maybe schools where you know it's not just   sunshine and ray bones and friendships and the  teachers are nice to you and you learn things   and that's all there is again i really like that  aspect of the school being the villain the enemy   in this so if you have any recommendations  for things that are similar to that premise   i would love love to know about them so i can  read them but in the end the original reason why   i picked this book up had very little significance  to the actual story she basically just took the   very very basic idea of the shower man's legend  and the name and then you know created her   own world and story around it which is totally  fine if it would have had more of the original   element to the story maybe i would have enjoyed  it more because again it's something that is very   fun to me to see something from my own culture  depicted in books but that was not the case with   this so whatever but yeah do let me know if you've  read this book and what you thought about it or if   you haven't read this book what is a book that you  had high expectations of or something that sounded   really really good to you and like it could have  been a five-star read and then you ended up being   really let down by it and giving it a one or two  stars leave that in the comment section below and   we can talk more about having high expectations  for a book and then being let down it's not a fun   feeling but it does happen unfortunately sometimes  but that was it for me today guys thank you so   much for watching and i hope you have a great  day and i'll see you next time in a new video bye

Channel: Iasmina Edina

Views: 1,823

Keywords: dark academia book, a deadly education book review, dark academia, dark academia books, reading vlog, a deadly education, a deadly education naomi novik review, a deadly education naomi novik, the scholomance legend, deadly education, a deadly education review, dark academia book recommendations, romanian mythology in books, book reviews 2020, scholomance academy, romanian folklore stories, naomi novik, fantasy book reviews 2020, best book reviews 2020, Young adult books

Id: uRduIeQNlEQ

Length: 13min 45sec (825 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 01 2021