Matthew's Journal

This is the final part of the Scholomance triology, all of which have been nominated for the Lodestar Award. To my mind, it's the best of the trilogy; both in that there was less of the self-sabotage that irked me in previous books, and that it creates a sense of inevitable crawling horror about the way the world is ordered. The way wizarding society has set itself up is awful, but you also see how it has ended up that way, and that holds a mirror up to our society and the way we persuade ourselves it's OK to treat outsiders the way we do, and persuade ourselves the things we do to make ourselves comfortable are fine really.

I did spot some of the major plot points coming, but I think that may have been part of the point of this book - the chickens coming home to roost, previous books' events now being explained, and the reader can see El's denial slowly peeling away. Despite all of which, and the fact that there isn't a happy ever after, there is also hope at the end, that people trying to do the right thing can make a difference.

Also, points for canon bisexual character where it isn't a Big Deal :)