The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Novik, Naomi. A Deadly Education. Del Rey, 2020. Kindle.

Naomi Novak’s A Deadly Education is the first novel in The Scholomance series for young adults. El was about to finish her junior year at The Scholomance, the only school on Earth for witches and wizards, who lived amongst the humans in secret. Magical teens between the ages of 13 and 18 were particularly vulnerable to maleficaria, monsters who roamed the earth feeding off witches and wizards. There were enclaves of witches and wizards throughout the world who banded together and shared power resources. They had built the school, which was connected to earth through a single gate, in order to have a place to send their children. Monsters were attracted to the school because of the amount of tasty teens inside, so the school was designed to trap them all on the bottom floor. Machinery that produced immortal flame and cleared the hall was installed and the students were mostly safe inside the walls, except for the small creature who snuck in through pipes and vents. When the machinery broke, the enclavers decided that they would allow independent students into the school along with the enclave students. They would spend four years training to fight monsters together, and then, on graduation day, they would all attempt to escape the school through the graduation hall, which was full of monsters who had been waiting all year to eat.

El was an independent student whose only relative was her mother, a famous healer known for her benevolence and kindness. Her father had been killed by a maw-mouth while attempting to get her pregnant mother out of The Scholomance. When her mother took El to meet her father’s family, El’s grandmother took one look at El and proclaimed that she was evil, and then made a prophecy about the massive destruction she would bring to the world. As she got older, it became clear that El did have extraordinary powers of evil. With the help of her mother, though, she was able to reject her natural instincts and remain good. All witches use life energy to power their magic. Most witches use small amounts of malia pulled from small insects to generate their power. Some witches go bad and turn into maleficers by sucking life energy from larger creatures and humans. This is a challenge for most wizards, but for El it was as easy as breathing. If she wanted to suck the life out of all the students in the school, she could do so without trying, and she would be able to destroy cities with the snap of her fingers. Instead, she decided to stick to a purely mana lifestyle, which meant that she generated all her magic herself through exercise, crochet, or meditation. She captured this energy and stored it in her mother’s magical crystals, which were designed to hold mana.

The enclavers joined together and had massive amounts of power to share with one another, and El was determined to get into an enclave after graduation so she could stop being scared and powerless all the time. People instinctively disliked her and she was very unpopular, so she wanted to make a huge display of her powers and convince the enclave kids that she was worth inviting into their exclusive societies. Her plans were ruined, however, when Orion saved her from a Soul-Eater. Orion was an anomaly—a New York enclaver who was able to kill any monster he went after, who monsters never attempted to go after. He had saved hundreds of students since starting at The Scholomance, and he was the most popular boy because everyone loved his heroics. El thought he was annoying and did not want people thinking she was weak. He tried to make things up to her by helping her repair her room, but this only served to convince the school they were dating. This schoolwide suspicion heightened when Orion began to suspect El of being a maleficer and started following her everywhere to make sure she was not doing anything evil. El quickly realized what people were assuming about her, and decided to leverage her rumored relationship to become popular with the enclaver kids. She did so, and also took two independent witches with her—Liu and Aadhya—in the hopes that, even if her plan to get into an enclave did not work, she would have independent allies.

Her plan worked even better than she had hoped. She ended up becoming authentic friends with Orion and getting invited to join the New York enclave, which was the most prestigious in the world. At the last moment, however, she decided she could not join an enclave because she disagreed with the oppression that enclaves promoted. Instead, she formed an independent alliance with Liu and Aadhya. Things seemed to be looking up for her, but as graduation approached, the seniors started to get anxious about the monsters, who had been denied their usual snacks because of Orion. Large monsters, including a maw-mouth, grew desperate and fought their way into the school, which was highly unusual.

El, Orion, and a group of seniors decided to go down to the graduation hall on the morning of graduation in order to fix the machinery that would rid the hall of monsters. They were successful, and the seniors were able to graduate without having to fight through the monsters. El and Orion shared a kiss, but then decided not to date until after they graduated the next year. The freshman arrived by teleportation for their induction with letters from parents and friends. El received a letter from her mother, urging her to keep away from Orion.