SOLVED. YA Fantasy series. Magic school seniors must run gamut of monsters in the basement to graduate. Read in 2020-2021. [s]

[Ruth Anne]

A school for magic full of monsters that constantly have to be destroyed. The mother of the heroine is a hippy living in a commune. There are different groups, like a "New York contingency". The heroine isn't in a group and forms one of her own; one girl within it creates a lute. Each year that class's rooms drop to a lower level until the graduating seniors must pass through a basement filled with multiple hungry monsters and those who make it out alive graduate.

Heroine gets romantically involved with boy from NY contingency; he's a daredevil who leaves no monster undestroyed, always running into danger.

Entering freshmen can bring nothing with them, but one girl with beads in her hair delivers a message hidden in a bead to heroine from her mother, the final line of the book, saying "Don't kiss [name of boy]!" which of course she already has.

I read this book within the past year. It is, I believe, part of a trilogy.

[Beth]

A Deadly education by Naomi Novik. Book 2 comes out at the end of this month.

[Ruth Anne]

Thank you!

[Kris]

Ruth Anne, I see you moved your thread to a Solved folder. Glad you found your book. Link for Beth's find - A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik.