Well, this book really does escalate things. I thought A Deadly Education was pretty good, but that it began climaxing at a point where it should have begun escalating. And it's not just that the world doesn't work the way she thought: it means something for what she will have to do. The rules of how the world does work have been so enmeshed in the mind of the reader, that the idea they could work differently feels as disruptive to you the reader as it does to her, a person who actually lives in this world. Our protagonist, El, realizes that the world does not function the way she thought it does. Similarly, The Last Graduate has a moment in it that builds on the extensive worldbuilding done here and in the series' first book, A Deadly Education. The book does such a good job with the concept of the dæmons, especially the idea that they are inseparable from their humans, that a mere 150 pages after you learn about this, it viscerally feels like a violation when you discover people out there are separating humans from their dæmons. One of the most effective moments I've ever witnessed in fantasy worldbuilding comes in Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass. The Last Graduate: Lesson Two of The Scholomance
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