Reviews

Ptolemy's Gate is the third, final, and best entry in the Bartimaeus trilogy. Taking place three years after The Golem's Eye, Nathaniel aka "John Mandrake" is the youngest government minister with his sights set on even bigger things. The nasty side of his nature has come into full bloom and he's happy to play power politics for no other reason than he can. His power has been propped up by the heavy use of the demon Bartimaeus, despite the fact that keeping the demon in our world weakens him significantly and causes him pain. Finally, Kitty, who is presumed dead, has taken on a new identity and is working for a retired magician, learning everything she can about how magicians work.

Ptolemy's Gate may be a book marketed to middle schoolers, but I would argue that the subject matter of Ptolemy's Gate is the kind of thoughtful, and sometimes painful, insight into the human condition that will resonate with adults perhaps even more than its target audience.

Remember that scene in Harry Potter where Harry dips into Snape's memories and sees his father and godfather bullying Snape and it kind of blows his mind; he doesn't know what to do with the information that his father wasn't this great guy like everyone told him? And now he has to reconcile that maybe things aren't all good or all bad? Ptolemy's Gate stretches that cold, hard reality into a whole novel. This gets deep here folks. Redemption, sacrifice, and empathy are the pillars on which Ptolemy's Gate is built.

This story for middle schoolers is a painfully realistic gift, wrapped up with a bow of humor and fantasy, but don't think this is some esoteric treatise on life. Stroud delivers an intricate plot with evil henchman, underhanded playwrights, disguised demons and government coups, a finale that will not disappoint.

annikare's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

liketheday's review against another edition

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3.0

If I had been reading this book in print, I have to say I might have given up on it. Most of it is wonderful and up to par with the rest of the series, for sure. But somewhere in the last third of the book, Stroud goes off on what seemed, listening to it, to be a long and tedious tangent about the "Other Place" where demons spend their time when not being enslaved. I was interested to know what it was like, sure, but after just a few sentences of description, I was like, okay, I get it, let's move on? Please? There's also a lot of metaphor and meaning imbued into this Other Place, and I would have at least put the book down and walked away after a few pages of that.
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adrianneadelle's review against another edition

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5.0

Perfect.

flammedoudoune's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

mikimeiko's review

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3.0

Better than the second one, but still far from perfect.

mehitabels's review against another edition

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4.0

"How is this discontent expressed? I detect it in the careful blankness of their features when your police draw near. I see it in the hardness of their eyes as they pass the recruitment books. I watch it pile up silently with the flowers at the doors of the bereaved."

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