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fuchsiarascal's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
Good lord, I finally finished it and am so happy about that. Listen, it's not often that you get to say the TV show is better than the book (especially if the book came first), but this is an exception. Reading it just made me miss the show and all the actual character development and fun in it... so I got the DVDs from the library while I sludged through this. And it's a shame, because I really had high hopes for this, being a huge fan of the show.
So, let's be honest, the book absolutely reads like a self-insert fanfic of Harry Potter and Chronicles of Narnia... but in the most insufferable way. All the focus is on Quentin (in the show, the focus gets split between characters pretty evenly), and he's just... a terrible person. Not necessarily morally terrible, just terrible to be around. And, listen, I'm a big fan of characters who start out insufferable and you eventually come around to (see: almost all of the Graceling series main characters), but he never has any growth, he never sees his own faults or thinks, "Hmm, maybe I'm the problem." And he just gets away with it!He sleeps with Janet, then Alice sleeps with Penny after they break up, and *she's* the bad guy? And then she goes to Fillory "to protect and save him" (her words!) to... win him back? Definitely a guy's wet dream fanfic.
And, sure, you can have a main character who's disillusioned and pretentious and insufferable, and the point of the story can be that "magic doesn't fix things", but... Lev Grossman does absolutely nothing clever or even interesting with this premise. It's just suffering on top of suffering. When I read that he attended Yale and Harvard, it all made sense: this is genre fiction that aims to be "higher brow" than your standard fare of genre fiction, because Grossman had a boner for HP but it's too "common", but The Magicians lacks all the charm of what makes fantasy good.
In list format, this book has so many things that should be great. Give me chronically depressed characters! Spin the expectation that magic makes everything better (although many fantasy fans would already know this isn't the case)! Give me real problems mixed with fantasy! But Grossman seems to miss the point with all of this, with why people enjoy fantasy. It's not because of the magic. To quote Coraline from Neil Gaiman: “Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” (Just replace fairy tales with fantasy; I promise it still works.) Fine, they beat the big bad with magic, but they're still miserable sacks of shit. Where's the satisfaction? Oh, right, because they need therapy and self-reflection, which is sorely missing from this book.
To be clear, I didn't hate this book with the intensity of a thousand suns (that would be a one star rating); it was just boring and had no charm. I don't want to read the other two in the series because this was so bad, but I probably will because I have a perverse need to see how it goes (I really can't leave series unfinished, it's a curse!) and how it differs from the show.
I switched back and forth between audiobook and printed versions for this; the audiobook narrator was decent but probably would've been more enjoyable if I had enjoyed the text 😅
So, let's be honest, the book absolutely reads like a self-insert fanfic of Harry Potter and Chronicles of Narnia... but in the most insufferable way. All the focus is on Quentin (in the show, the focus gets split between characters pretty evenly), and he's just... a terrible person. Not necessarily morally terrible, just terrible to be around. And, listen, I'm a big fan of characters who start out insufferable and you eventually come around to (see: almost all of the Graceling series main characters), but he never has any growth, he never sees his own faults or thinks, "Hmm, maybe I'm the problem." And he just gets away with it!
And, sure, you can have a main character who's disillusioned and pretentious and insufferable, and the point of the story can be that "magic doesn't fix things", but... Lev Grossman does absolutely nothing clever or even interesting with this premise. It's just suffering on top of suffering. When I read that he attended Yale and Harvard, it all made sense: this is genre fiction that aims to be "higher brow" than your standard fare of genre fiction, because Grossman had a boner for HP but it's too "common", but The Magicians lacks all the charm of what makes fantasy good.
In list format, this book has so many things that should be great. Give me chronically depressed characters! Spin the expectation that magic makes everything better (although many fantasy fans would already know this isn't the case)! Give me real problems mixed with fantasy! But Grossman seems to miss the point with all of this, with why people enjoy fantasy. It's not because of the magic. To quote Coraline from Neil Gaiman: “Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” (Just replace fairy tales with fantasy; I promise it still works.) Fine, they beat the big bad with magic, but they're still miserable sacks of shit. Where's the satisfaction? Oh, right, because they need therapy and self-reflection, which is sorely missing from this book.
To be clear, I didn't hate this book with the intensity of a thousand suns (that would be a one star rating); it was just boring and had no charm. I don't want to read the other two in the series because this was so bad, but I probably will because I have a perverse need to see how it goes (I really can't leave series unfinished, it's a curse!) and how it differs from the show.
I switched back and forth between audiobook and printed versions for this; the audiobook narrator was decent but probably would've been more enjoyable if I had enjoyed the text 😅
wicklowgirl's review against another edition
3.75
I dnf’d at 67%, right before they got to fillory, i just wasn’t liking any of the characters and it felt like they weren’t supposed to go there
s_h_a_r_i's review against another edition
3.0
This book feels like a combination of Harry Potter/Narnia fanfiction. Was a rather fun read, but at the same time, managed to pack some of the most annoying characters possible into a single book.
kalkn's review against another edition
1.0
DID NOT FINISH
I wanted to live this book but I couldn't. I kept world for something to happen but it never did. It doesn't know what it is with its references to a Narnia clone and Harry Potter it couldn't device if it was fun or serious. Got to the point where they made it to Fillroy and finally quit. Would not suggest to anyone to read.
I wanted to live this book but I couldn't. I kept world for something to happen but it never did. It doesn't know what it is with its references to a Narnia clone and Harry Potter it couldn't device if it was fun or serious. Got to the point where they made it to Fillroy and finally quit. Would not suggest to anyone to read.
sinestrogirl's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
sadieros73's review against another edition
1.0
I read a good chunk of this book before I decided it wasn't something I wanted emblazed in my brain. I skimmed the end to figure out how it ended and instantly regretted the time I spent even doing that much. What bugs me the most is the boring interludes on "Fillory", which is really code for Narnia. The first parts of the book introduce this other land by narrating how a guy had read about it. I would have preferred parrallel chapters with the Chatwins in the fantasy land instead of all the third-hand accounts which do not feel relevant to the story until you hit the third major partition.
My misery level reading this was on par with my experience with Game of Thrones, except none of these characters are redeemable. The characters remind me of a bunch of Paris Hiltons riding a false high (yeah they all turn out to be substance abusers) to fantasy land where, all of the sudden, you have to remember the boring Fillory stuff I skipped over in the beginning. The main character is no Harry Potter unless you put Harry on the road to hell with a fifth of Jack and a bag of coke.
I don't think curiosity will get me reading book two, but if I become one of those self-flagellating monks I'll consider it.
My misery level reading this was on par with my experience with Game of Thrones, except none of these characters are redeemable. The characters remind me of a bunch of Paris Hiltons riding a false high (yeah they all turn out to be substance abusers) to fantasy land where, all of the sudden, you have to remember the boring Fillory stuff I skipped over in the beginning. The main character is no Harry Potter unless you put Harry on the road to hell with a fifth of Jack and a bag of coke.
I don't think curiosity will get me reading book two, but if I become one of those self-flagellating monks I'll consider it.
treniseferreira's review against another edition
1.0
A book that had so much promise but was painfully boring and disappointingly low on plot development. Do not read! You'll regret it, like I did.
erikaq's review against another edition
4.0
The book is very much a coming of age story. It borrows heavily from Narnia and yet twists that into something darker and more interesting. The idea of magic school obviously has some conotations of Harry Potter and all of that is fine because by being aware of that, it informs how the book is read and I can see why it's called the adult Harry Potter. It shines in that it is a realistic take on magic and on the consequences that it can have and it doesn't shy away from showing that just like real life, fantasy can have flaws.
Quentin is depressed and listless and his coping mechanism is the Fillory and More books and when it turns out that he can do magic that changes his world and yet it doesn’t thrust him into a different land or world where he can actually do anything with those powers past learn how to use them which in a way makes the whole thing pointless and yet that's exactly what the book is pointing out. We get to see Quentin have the typical college life and after he’s done with school, he really does nothing except to hang out with his friends and get drunk and high. Until Fillory turns out to be real and that changes things.
But going to Fillory and going on a quest is nothing like what he could have expected and the reality is that he and his friends are not prepared to face that but somehow they do and there are concequences to that.
The book does so well at establishing interesting and relatable and broken characters. It deals with an adult take on what it would be like if a fantasy world were real and what that would actually be like especially taking into account the difficult and often complex relationships that adults have with both friends and lovers.
Overall I enjoyed it and I'll check out the sequels.
Quentin is depressed and listless and his coping mechanism is the Fillory and More books and when it turns out that he can do magic that changes his world and yet it doesn’t thrust him into a different land or world where he can actually do anything with those powers past learn how to use them which in a way makes the whole thing pointless and yet that's exactly what the book is pointing out. We get to see Quentin have the typical college life and after he’s done with school, he really does nothing except to hang out with his friends and get drunk and high. Until Fillory turns out to be real and that changes things.
But going to Fillory and going on a quest is nothing like what he could have expected and the reality is that he and his friends are not prepared to face that but somehow they do and there are concequences to that.
The book does so well at establishing interesting and relatable and broken characters. It deals with an adult take on what it would be like if a fantasy world were real and what that would actually be like especially taking into account the difficult and often complex relationships that adults have with both friends and lovers.
Overall I enjoyed it and I'll check out the sequels.
nrm1123's review against another edition
5.0
Harry Potter but for adults! Absolutely loved it!!! Highly recommend!