Middle books of trilogies are either brilliant or fall completely flat. I wondered how this would work when obviously, book 2 is el's last year.

I shouldn't have worried, of course. I enjoyed every page, and as has become no surprise, the very last sentence means you're utterly pulled into picking up book 3 immediately. I'd have been very annoyed if I were waiting for this to come out. For all that people compare these books to Harry Potter (I suppose because of a very tenuous link in that they both feature a school where you perform magic?) I can see the appeal of throwing yourself into the fanfiction scene whilst waiting for the official word as I did all those years ago in the Potterverse.