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4.46 AVERAGE
4.46 AVERAGE
I LOVE these books. I like them much better than Harry Potter. They are the perfect mix of action and humor and it's all really believable. I like how Stroud puts the magicians in with the humans ... they all have the same materials and resources except one can use magic ... and technically runs most of the world. I enjoyed the struggle through the last two books for "commoners" and magicians to find acceptance and also a way to live together. I loved the lessons of this book and the characters so much.
+ fun story; unexpected end
+ loved the narration from the point of view of the genie
+ loved the narration from the point of view of the genie
The reveal was awesome! About as good of a conclusion to an excellent series as you can get.
I really loved this series. I really did. When I first started reading, I thought it might be a bit of a repeat Harry Potter: Young orphaned boy wizard discovers powers. I loved Harry Potter too--I'm an obsessive reader of it. But I didn't want to read a repeat. HOWEVER:
This series was NOT a repeat of Harry Potter. It is its own amazing fantastically written series. There is more of that fabulous governmental oppressed people stuff that most readers love (including me) and it had something that appeared in the second book that made me metaphorically jump for joy:
A STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER WHO IS NOT SECONDARY IN ANY WAY!
Kitty Jones, you are fantabulous.
Kitty and Nathaniel, the child/teen protagonists, are just really superbly written. Both have their strengths and their realistic and realistically endearing weaknesses, and despite Nathaniel's occasional tug towards dislike on the readers' end, the end of the series almost made me cry. I don't cry when I read books until its my fifth or sixth time reading them, and even though I don't own these masterpieces created by Jonathan Stroud the genius author, I live near a library so WHO CARES.
Then there's the third protagonist, Bartimaeus.
Bartimaeus has the knack of simultaneously making you feel unbelievably sorry for him while also being so insanely witty that you laugh when read in his chapters, or when any other character meets him. He's got spunk and verve and panache, but not too much to make it cheesy. And then there's the fact that him, being a djinni, can see the world on seven layers. Oh, and he's thousands of years old, with a perfect memory. So there's these clever and totally realistically irrelevant and egotistical notes on most pages.
READ THESE BOOKS! You will not be sorry. The world of magicians Stroud has invented is lively and truthful: there are classes and castes and poor people and rich people, there are selfish policemen and sneaky store-owners. And most of all, there is a villain who lurks where all can see him/her, but it will take the reader a good long time to figure out who he/she is.
This series was NOT a repeat of Harry Potter. It is its own amazing fantastically written series. There is more of that fabulous governmental oppressed people stuff that most readers love (including me) and it had something that appeared in the second book that made me metaphorically jump for joy:
A STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER WHO IS NOT SECONDARY IN ANY WAY!
Kitty Jones, you are fantabulous.
Kitty and Nathaniel, the child/teen protagonists, are just really superbly written. Both have their strengths and their realistic and realistically endearing weaknesses, and despite Nathaniel's occasional tug towards dislike on the readers' end, the end of the series almost made me cry. I don't cry when I read books until its my fifth or sixth time reading them, and even though I don't own these masterpieces created by Jonathan Stroud the genius author, I live near a library so WHO CARES.
Then there's the third protagonist, Bartimaeus.
Bartimaeus has the knack of simultaneously making you feel unbelievably sorry for him while also being so insanely witty that you laugh when read in his chapters, or when any other character meets him. He's got spunk and verve and panache, but not too much to make it cheesy. And then there's the fact that him, being a djinni, can see the world on seven layers. Oh, and he's thousands of years old, with a perfect memory. So there's these clever and totally realistically irrelevant and egotistical notes on most pages.
READ THESE BOOKS! You will not be sorry. The world of magicians Stroud has invented is lively and truthful: there are classes and castes and poor people and rich people, there are selfish policemen and sneaky store-owners. And most of all, there is a villain who lurks where all can see him/her, but it will take the reader a good long time to figure out who he/she is.
adventurous
challenging
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I LOVED these books... they are super funny and very difficult to put down.