The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik – Review

Published: September 27, 2022

Publisher: Del Rey Books

Series: The Scholomance #3

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 416 (Hardcover)

My Rating: 3.5/5.0

Synopsis:
Saving the world is a test no school of magic can prepare you for in the triumphant conclusion to the New York Times bestselling trilogy that began with A Deadly Education and The Last Graduate.

Almost singlehandedly–although backed by an increasingly large cadre of genuine friends–El has changed the nature of the Scholomance forever. But now that she is back in the real world, how will the lessons she learned inside the school apply? Will her grandmother’s prophecy come true? Will she really spell the doom of all the enclaves forever?

As the quest to save her one true love ramps up, however, El is about to learn the most significant lesson of all–the dire truth on which the enclaves and the whole stability of the magical world are founded. And being El, she is not likely to let it lie….

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I have been HYPED for this book since the absolutely infuriating ending of The Last Graduate. What kind of monster leaves you with a cliffhanger like that? For a year no less! The Golden Enclaves dumps you right in the aftermath of Graduation and pulls no punches. El is back in Wales but Orion is still in the Scholomance. He can’t be magically yanked out even with El’s massive power and it seems likely that Patience, the giant mawmouth that eats wizards and digests them for eternity, gobbled him up. Commence breakdown. Now El has no other choice but to return to the Scholomance and kill Patience to release Orion’s soul because of course, he must already be dead.

Thus ensues a great deal of travel and linking back up with her former classmates to accomplish the task of returning to the Scholomance. Unfortunately, mawmouths are attacking enclaves, seemingly sent by some dark malificer and El feels quite obligated to help even though she doesn’t really approve of the enclaves any longer. I personally enjoyed the travel to the different enclaves because it helps make the world outside the Scholomance feel less nebulous (even if much of it backs up to the void). The introduction of Orion’s parents was quite the interesting surprise as well and explained much about Orion. 

I loved that El got to meet back up with Ahdieh and Lu for a good portion of the book and even made a few new friends along the way, though I didn’t love Liesl. She was rather too perfunctory and efficient for my tastes, though the funny thing is I appreciate that in real life! El even got to reacquaint herself with her father’s family, which was lovely. Now, aside from all the lovely things I’m mentioning here, it also deals with some darker stuff. In fact, much of this book deals with the darker side of magic and the costs of survival in a harsh world full of maleficaria. I’m talking about things like trauma, sacrifices, abuse of power (not just the magical variety), and how privilege divides the haves from the have nots. It just felt a bit bureaucratic – nothing is personal, it’s all just business, even the really evil stuff like human sacrifice.

Overall, the Golden Enclaves was a fairly satisfying ending to a trilogy that I greatly enjoyed as a whole. For me, the pacing was a little slow at times – I found myself getting impatient with El’s wallowing (though it was justified wallowing) – and really just wanted the plot to get on with it. As with The Last Graduate, I did think some parts just went on for too long. This ended up being my least favorite of the books, which was somewhat disappointing but I suppose that’s just because it defied my every expectation and went down a path that was necessary, but not as exciting as fighting for one’s life in the Scholomance.