The Golden Enclaves

Genre

Fantasy & Magical Realism

Publisher

Del Rey (Penguin Random House)

Publication year

2022

ISBN

9780593158357

In the concluding volume of the Scholomance trilogy, El and her classmates have escaped their lethal magical school, only to find the wider world of wizard enclaves facing collapse. El must master her catastrophic powers and confront the true cost of the enclaves' safety. Naomi Novik's finale...

Naomi Novik's Scholomance trilogy began by trapping teenage wizards in a school that kills students as readily as it teaches them; its acclaimed finale, The Golden Enclaves, opens just after their escape and promptly widens the lens to the whole rotten system that made such a school necessary. El - prickly, powerful, prophesied to bring ruin - must reckon with the terrible foundations on which the safe 'enclaves' of the magical world are built, and with what saving her friends might cost. Novik pays off three books of mystery with revelation after revelation, turning a dark-academia adventure into a pointed allegory about privilege, complicity and who is sacrificed so that others may be safe. Her first-person voice remains sharp and funny even as the stakes turn cosmic and grief-stricken. It is best read after the first two volumes, but as a conclusion it is bold and emotionally earned. For fans of smart, morally serious YA-crossover fantasy, it is a triumphant close.