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deathmetalheron's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Death
Moderate: Alcoholism, Alcohol, Infidelity, and Violence
Minor: Drug use
jess02448's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Moderate: Cursing
Minor: Infidelity, Alcohol, Adult/minor relationship, Addiction, and Drug use
distractible's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Graphic: Alcohol
Moderate: Infidelity, Death, and Violence
Minor: Mental illness, Sexual content, and Fatphobia
tbd24's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Animal death, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, Alcoholism, Infidelity, Death, Addiction, and Alcohol
Minor: Racism, Religious bigotry, Fire/Fire injury, Cultural appropriation, Drug use, Sexism, Sexual assault, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Homophobia, Excrement, Fatphobia, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Pedophilia, Child death, Ableism, Suicide, Misogyny, Cursing, and Violence
minechatz's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
I generally find shitty book protagonists to be interesting with the caveat that they're written well. Quentin isn't written especially well. He's got like, the self-infatuation of Ged from Earthsea, without any of the nuance that made Ged interesting and, eventually, redeemable. Not that a protagonist needs to be redeemable -- but they do need to be interesting. Quentin just is.
My sense is that this book was written as a part of the "gritty fairy tale" tide that produced one good thing [i.e. Wicked] and many, many stinkers. Like many of those stinkers, The Magicians doesn't understand what made the original stories tick, and isn't actually interested in subverting them. Its interest begins and ends in being able to say, "Oh, aren't I cooler than you for not caring?" [TW: CSA.]
I don't super mind that the book sort of skipped through Brakebills, and at first thought it was maybe a good choice. Grossman assumed we were familiar with the notion of magic school, and only really showed us his innovations on the form. Fair play. The issue came in when the book never stopped skipping through things. Episodic stories can work, of course, but in Magicians it's simply disjointed. It felt like we were constantly speeding through a part of the tape to get to the good bit, but the good bit never came.
The way The Beast was described was compelling. It's just too bad he only showed up twice. Most of the really interesting and compelling bits -- the things that made me keep reading -- only show up once or twice. In my opinion, if Grossman had developed things like The Beast, and the notion of magic as G-d's tools, this book would have earned all the rave reviews on its cover. As it is, it's aged pretty poorly. I genuinely feel like if this had gotten some more structural edits it would be much, much better.
tl;dr It's compelling enough for me to get the next one from the library, but I would be a little annoyed if I had bought this. You know?
Graphic: Infidelity
Moderate: Body horror, Pedophilia, Adult/minor relationship, and Child death
Minor: Child abuse
haleyrayreads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
The story is mainly driven by character who are pretty one note and their motivations are questionable at best. Their main quest is motivated by ‘well we aren’t doing anything else right now.’ and it takes forever to get to that point. This first 2/3 if this book was so slow. However, once they’re off on their quest the story moves at a more brisk pace that’s refreshing until the main antagonist is taken care of. After that it goes on several chapters too long. It felt like every time a chapter ended I thought that was the end, then there was even more story that served no purpose than to allow readers to wallow in our narrator’s sorrow. This could have been cut in half or more and gotten the same point across.
The concept is great and it’s a fun story with some adjustments, but the pacing, character development, and casual use of ableist and fatphobic language would make me hesitate to read this particular book again.
Graphic: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Addiction, Blood, and Cursing
Moderate: Ableism, Gore, Death, Gun violence, Violence, Fatphobia, and Mental illness
Minor: Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Blood, Infidelity, Body shaming, and Sexual content
starsnotshadows's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
I watched the television series before reading the book, and that was an unfortunate mistake. I think both pieces of media are rather entertaining, but they are quite different. So I was kind of fighting my preconceived notions of this story for a bit there, but once I thought of them as separate tellings of a similar story, it got better for me.
Graphic: Blood, Violence, Gore, and Infidelity
ireadinbed's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Lev Grossman is a deeply weird person. There's way too many weird phrases about balls and people fucking animals. . .or being animals fucking. . .idk it's weird.
Also I fucking hate the main character. He's getting a bit more bearable at the end, and no one says the main character has to be likable(I love the poppy war and the main character is an insufferable drug addicted war criminal), but it's like reading catcher in the rye with magic and I can't explain how much I hated Holden in that book. They are the same.
I do however love some of the supporting cast and the way that the books never feel like they are going to let you see the point. The only dance around it. Interested to see where they go.
Graphic: Alcohol, Body horror, and Death
Moderate: Mental illness, Fatphobia, Suicidal thoughts, Animal cruelty, and Infidelity
Minor: Sexual harassment
azebrareads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Death, Drug use, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Grief, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Vomit