Reviews with content warning for Alcoholism - The Magicians

Reviews tagging 'Alcoholism'

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

33 reviews

mieshka's review

Didn't think this would be my first (quasi)review on this site, but I guess this one disappointment is louder than the many beautiful moments I had with other books.

I DNF'd this many years ago because the main character annoyed me. Then, I watched the TV adaptation and enjoyed it. As part of that experience, I realized that most of my complaints about Quentin were actually intentional character flaws that were the whole point of the story.

So I decided to give it another shot. I went in with the intent to interpret every ick in the narration as belonging to the main character, but so much feels like it's been summarized that it's hard to think of it as anything but a prose problem. The narration is somehow both pretentious and dull, and all the characters feel absolutely flat.

I was planning to finish this book and just not continue the series, but then I realized I was dreading my regular reading time and decided to call it instead.

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morgnicole's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Fucked up and depressing. Loved it!

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rainylavender's review against another edition

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dark sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

When reading the Magicians, I thought I would be the target audience of this book as someone who loves fantasy and has depression. A good chunk of my criticism comes from me not being the target audience of this book. You know how at the end of certain kids movies and stories about magic, the kid loses the ability to see/experience magic at the end when they grow up? I've always hated that. I thought that magic is something that adults should get to experience too and you shouldn't grow out of that whimsy and fun. This book is like the adult version of that.

Quentin gets everything he wants and still he can't enjoy it. I get that's what depression is, trust me, I do. But I thought maybe he'd overcome it instead of following that theme the entire book. The book seems to end with him having decided magic is bad, but then in the last second Janet, Eliot, and Julia all show up to whisk him back to Fillory, so what was the point of everything? I'm sure this is just the preamble to a moral told by the other two books, but this book beat the horse so hard I don't have any desire to keep reading. The twists of them being manipulated by the Beast and killing all the good people while working for the bad people felt contrived to me, just done for shock value to really lay in that this is a "dark" and "not like other fantasies" fantasy but I also saw it coming a mile away because of how overdone that trope is. I also get that the point of Alice is that Quentin isn't supposed to realize how good he has it till she gone but I can't stand the way he treats her the entire book and her turning into a niffin at the end just felt like a cheap way to give Quentin character development that should've happened ages ago. And I can't stand Quentin. I can't stand his attitude, his faulty logic, and his sexism. I get that these are all traits to feed the moral and plot but it goes on for so long with very minimal change to the point where I'm just exhausted.

This book left me tired. The worst part is, I expected to love it.

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lauraew333's review

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adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

Complete waste of time, honestly. The author doesn't do anything to world build, character build, or plot build. I found the characters flat and uninteresting.

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emoryjoy's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

2.0

This never happens... The show is better. That may be in large part due to the fact that in the show, you don't get Quentin's inner monologue. If this is what the average man's thoughts are like, then you can have me down as a certified man hater. He is a very sad man who needs more therapy than he would ever be willing to pursue.

I've listened to this book twice now, (it's my cousin's favorite and I really tried to like it-) and I hated it both times. I will say this though, this book accidentally kicked me out of my reading slump. It was so awful that I needed a pallet cleanser and so I checked out all of my favorite childhood series and then was able to start reading all of these other things that had been on my list. I'm updating this review about 2 years later and I have not slowed down my reading since then. So it gets an extra star for that.

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csmall73's review

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adventurous dark mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Its a strange story. Quentin is swept into a magical world of breakbills and magical college essentially. His entire time at breakbills is encompassed in the first part of the book. There’s no threats or quests. Seems more like a diary of his time there.

Reading about some of the sexual encounters of his peers was odd and detached. I found Quentin’s and Alice’s fox encounter weird and borderline SA. I say borderline because it appears so but also he was unprepared for his animal brain at the time. Then the ensuing relationship seems detached like a friends with benefits but not?

All seem lost in fucking, philosophical discussion, wine and lack of real motivation. Like bunch of rich kids that never had a job or purpose in life. Existential crisis. Amidst this existential crisis Quentin cheats on Alice.

Fillory, keeps popping up in passing as well as other worlds but no real connection with the story other than a childhood fascination with the world. 300/402 pages with nothing insight. Then all of a sudden a forgotten side character happens upon a way to Fillory. Out of the blue. I don’t understand why penny would come to them specifically after having issues in school with one another and distancing himself from them specifically.

Alice is an underestimated queen. Quentin is a petty asshole about the breakup and the consequences that come his way.

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noom's review

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adventurous challenging dark funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

God what a book, I ate it up. It's an odd book for sure, but really engaging. The plot is bonkers but never falls apart. The magic system is interesting and the world building is unique.

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deathmetalheron's review

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dark funny mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

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

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niff_the_nerd's review against another edition

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adventurous dark reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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tbd24's review

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adventurous dark funny tense medium-paced

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

I rather like this series, this is the second time i’ve read it and there are just really great turns of phrase in the prose. I love world building and this book embraces that times three, the magic system is cool and complicated and the characters are never just good people. Quentin is shitty and obnoxious but like what 17 yr old “gifted kid” isn’t? There’s a few questionable moments, the author loves to make women suffer viscerally a little too much in my opinion, but at least he still remembers to make them people. Overall, it’s a good read and an interesting series

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