Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme where every Tuesday we look at a particular topic for discussion and use various (or more to the point ten) bookish examples to demonstrate that particular topic.  Top Ten Tuesday (created and hosted by  The Broke and Bookish) is now being hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl and future week’s topics can be found here.  This week’s topic is:

A School Freebie

I’ve gone with books that take place within a school setting or other learning type environment (apprenticeships for example):

1. Harry Potter by JK Rowling.  I expect this will be on many, many lists this week but it had to be here otherwise the list would be incomplete.
2. The Poppy War by R F Kuang – I loved this book, it’s not for the faint of heart and it is definitely, absolutely not aimed at a YA audience.  Excellent book though and the main characters spends a good portion of time at military school.
3. Red Sister by Mark Lawrence – nuns – or are they assassins in training????  An absolute must read.
4. Skullsworn by Brian Staveley – I loved this book, it’s not based in a school but does involve a learning type role.  Pyrre Lakatur is an acolyte, yet to become a priestess and she is about to undergo her initiation.  The Priests and Priestesses who serve Anashiel are trained in the art of everything that is deadly, be it hand to hand combat, stealth, poison, or any number of other means – as you can imagine, her initiation might be tricky – aka deadly.
5.  Age of Assassins by RJ Barker – I love this series and hope to pick up the third book soon.  Girton is an assassin in training.  I’m not saying anything else – except, this series is brilliant – go read it.
6.  Nevernight by Jay Kristoff – Another school for assassins (hey, they have to learn somewhere, being lethal doesn’t just, you know, happen overnight with the onset of puberty!)  Mia and her shadowy cat, Mr Kindly, have some fun times making friends and drinking lemonade – or maybe they don’t, maybe they’re at a school where the competition is tough and the teaching can literally be the death of you.
7. Blood Song by Anthony Ryan – I love the start of this story, well, to be clear, I loved the whole series – but at the beginning we meet Vaelin as a young boy, given by his father to the Sixth Order where he will learn how to become a warrior who serves the realm or die in the process of trying.  A good portion of the book is spent with Vaelin as he faces various trials with the other boys who have also been ‘given’ to the Order.
8. Confessions by Kanae Minato.   The story starts in a highschool classroom where a home tutor (Yuko) informs her students of her decision to leave her job.  She relates a story about how she came to be a teacher and goes on to more personal issues including why she raises her child (Manami) as a lone parent – sometimes necessitating bringing her to school.  (Unfortunately during one such occasion Manami goes missing and her body is eventually found floating in the school swimming pool.)  Yuko believes that two of her students are responsible for the death of Manami.  And so the story begins.
9. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.  In which Kvothe aspires to attend the University – there are reasons for him wishing to be accepted as a student, not least his search to find out more about his parents’ deaths.
10. The Gentlemen Bastards – maybe a little bit of a cheat but with the start of the series Locke and Jean are learning the tricks of their trade from Chains – I think it counts.

Gestaendnisse von Kanae Minato