Read The Golden Enclaves

[conuly]

Prior to reading it, I was looking up the then-future publication date and came across somebody's review where he said he was "surprised at the twist" and then looked back and found it was foreshadowed after all, and I said "Well, is it this twist that people predicted already or that one?" and it turns out that it is BOTH of them - Orion is a mal in human form AND mawmouths are created in order to make modern enclaves. Well, they're sort of a dreary side effect of the process.

That latter was really foreshadowed both in a plot way (El spends most of book 2 speculating off-and-on about what might have killed of Bangkok, but she very suspiciously never considers the fact that they seem to have vanished off the face of the earth at the same time she killed her first mawmouth) and also in a characterization way (she also spends a lot of time very pointedly noting that enclaves are basically doing the same thing as maleficers, they're just not honest about it, and that the good intention of "keep my family safe" vanishes under the all-consuming desire for more that infests every enclave on earth).

Bonus point, btw, for that one fanfic which managed to accurately predict that Orion's mother did it to him on purpose because Reasons.

And although it's never actually stated, I feel vindicated in my belief that it is canon that El is actually really chock-full of natural charisma. It finally started working for her this book.

Anyway, it all came to a reasonably satisfying conclusion, and since it seems that almost nobody in El's life cares much about monogamy (and the only one we're told does went ahead and killed somebody's mother over it, so, y'know, she's not the hero of the story) then I guess all's well that ends well for those crazy kids.

El still finds things to complain about though, straight up until the very last page, but that's the cranky heroine we know and love.

Comments

[fuzzyred]

If this is the book by Naomi Novik, it is on my to read list! I've been waiting for it to come out because it wasn't available here yet. Should be this week I think?

So, I'm really tempted to read behind the cut, but I won't because I don't want to spoil the book (if it is actually the one I'm thinking of).

[conuly]

It is, in fact, what you're thinking of.

When you read it, come back, tell me if you already predicted those two twists!

[fuzzyred]

I will do that!

[fuzzyred]

I finished it! I really enjoyed the book, although I didn't actually predict either of those twists. I should have though (at the very least the enclave bit), because they are rather well telegraphed in the previous books.

It didn't surprise me, however, when El and the others got back to school and all the mals had been killed. We were told that Orion was stupidly powerful, and since I was refusing to believe he was actually dead, killing all the mals seemed like a decently plausible way for that to happen.

[conuly]

Oh, yeah, there was pretty much no flipping way Novik was going to kill off Orion, though I am surprised she both didn't kill him off and then also leaned so hard into El/Liesel. Must be her fandom roots showing.

[dogstar]

It was a really fun read! I felt like the twists were well-telegraphed but still had a good emotional punch when confirmed, if that makes sense?

[conuly]

Yes, it does and I agree.

[readerjane]

Any chance you have a link to that fanfic?

It occurred to me as I was 2/3 of the way through this book, that El reminds me quite a bit of Murderbot.

[conuly]

Offhand, no, but there aren't that many Scholomance fanfics at Ao3, so if you don't find it yourself in the next day I can probably find it for you.

[conuly]

Also, El doesn't remind me of Murderbot, but I can see why she reminds you of Murderbot. It's the sarcasm and the internalized self-loathing, which probably actually doesn't help the whole "oncoming storm" thing she's got going on. I'm reasonably certain that this effect, aside from being something people can overcome with a bit of effort, is not really inherent to El per se, but to things like her mental state and whether or not she's currently judging herself for judging other people for not living up to her incredibly strict ethical standards.

Though unless Naomi Novik decides she wants to write a fourth book I doubt we'll get confirmation of my headcanon any time soon.