The Last Graduate

This is sequel to one of the best books I have read so far this year, A Deadly Education.

The other book in the running for the best book I have read this year is Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries.

But this book, this book is called The Last Graduate, and it was also fantastic.

Opening line:

"Keep far away from Orion Lake."

Which was a direct call back to the first book in more way than one, and thus absolutely perfect.

About being noticed and having a temper:

"I wasn't used to anyone inquiring after me, or for that matter even noticing when I'm upset. Unless I'm sufficiently upset that I start conveying the impression that I'm about to set everyone around me on fire, which does in fact happen on a not infrequent basis."

Commentary on sympathy due in the event that your privilege is showing:

"I suppose I should've felt sorry for her, but I'd rather be sorry for someone who never had luck at all than for someone whose extreme luck ran out unexpectedly. Mum would tell me I could be sorry for both of them, to which I'd say she could be sorry for both of them, but I had a more limited supply of sympathy and had to ration it."

I like this next part for two reasons. One: I tell my kids this all the time. Two: Mom is always right.

"Mum spent a lot of time in my formative years gently reminding me that people don't think about us nearly as much as we think they do, because they're all busy worrying what people are thinking about them. I thought that I'd listened to her, but it turned out that I hadn't. Privately I'd believed, on some deep level, that everyone was in fact thinking about me all the time, evaluating me, et cetera, when really they hadn't been giving me much of a thought at all. I had the pleasure of uncovering this exciting truth about myself because all of a sudden, a substantial number of people did start thinking about me quite a lot, and the contrast was hard to miss."