If you love a dark academia which asks us what we would do to succeed, check out That Devil, Ambition. I loved the way Miller plays with this almost Faustian bargain meets a critical look at privilege and academia. Keep reading this book review of That Devil, Ambition for my full thoughts.
Summary
There is only one school worth graduating from, and it creates as many magicians as it does graves…
First in his class and last in his noble line, Fabian Galloway’s only hope of a good future is passing his elite school’s honors class. It’s only offered to the best thirteen students, and those students have a single assignment: kill their professor.
If they succeed, their student debt is forgiven. However, if an assassination attempt fails or the professor is alive at the end of the year, the students’ lives are forfeit.
And dealing with the professor, a devil summoned solely to kill or be killed, is no easy task.
Fabian isn’t worried, though. He trusts his best friends—softhearted math genius Credence and absent-minded but insightful Euphemia—to help. After all, that’s why he befriended them.
As the months pass and their professor remains impossibly alive, the trio must use every asset they have to survive. Or else failure will be on their academic records—and their tombstones—forever.
Review
That Devil, Ambition balances introspective themes and critiques of privilege with an action packed story where students are dropping like flies. In their class, these honor students make a dangerous deal to try escape their debt – they have to kill their professor or be killed themselves. Their desperation fuels their efforts and as time ticks down, deals are struck, alliances are formed, and betrayal is wrought. That Devil, Ambition examines the intersection of desperation and ambition. What inspiration occurs when you mix these two together? Their fates rest on their outcome and do we have any option of not letting that manipulate us?
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I loved how Miller explores this idea that greatness requires sacrifice, but who can afford to sacrifice? These students have lives and families resting on their successes – or failures – and sacrifice seems to be a privilege afforded to those who didn’t need it before. That Devil, Ambition explores the price of survival and what happens when they demand everything you have and more? What are these institutions which ask us, force us, to pay for the privilege of being broken? This is the core which underlies the action, the ticking clock, and these character manipulations. Find That Devil, Ambition on Goodreads, Storygraph, Bookshop. org, Blackwells, & Libro. fm.