This review is going to contain some spoilers for the ending of The Last Graduate. But to summarise, yes, buy this book, buy the whole series and consume them. That said, on with the review.

So this book once again picks up right where the last one left off, with El being shoved through the gates at graduation by Orion as he turns to face off against the maw mouth Patience. From literally the first sentence I was hooked. Unfortunately I agreed with a friend that I’d hold off on reading it until he’d gotten his copy so, after reading a chapter and a half, I forced myself to lock it in a drawer. And I needed that lock between me and the book as well because after just that chapter and a half I had a compulsive need to keep reading.

I was interested in seeing how this could be Lesson Three of the Scholomance seeing as the last book ended with it being cheerfully yeeted off into the void. And I wasn’t disappointed. Not only does The Golden Enclaves build upon that ending it builds upon the whole series. It brought to the surface threads that I hadn’t noticed running through all the books and it did it in such a natural ways. I’m going to have to go back and reread the other books, again, because this one will change how I view them.

And the twist in this book! I love the twist. I’m obviously not going to spoil what it is but when I worked it out I messaged my friend and expressed my admiration for it with a whole lot of swearing. That’s how you know it’s a good twist.

I read a lot of books and the majority of them are good. But even compared to them this one is special. This is a series that I won’t just read, appreciate and forget but one that I will go back to and probably reread at least once a year. Because in the field of publishing as a whole, this really does stand out as a beacon of good writing, good plotting and an interesting world.