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3.44 AVERAGE
3.44 AVERAGE
So I know I shouldn't compare the book to the tv series but good god is the tv series so much better. First off the book is plain boring, like nothing happens till the last part. Second there is zero diversity in the books. Can't believe a tv series actually made effort to add diverse characters and a lot of them at that. Super kudos to them. Not this book though. Also while I did have issues with how Eliot had to marry a woman the show addressed this while in the book even though that doesn't happen there are certain homophobic elements. Also good god is Quentin sexist. Actually this whole book is sexist with lines like 'she hits like a girl' and 'should be named Quintella' ugh that just super annoyed me. That and how he's always commenting on how someone's breasts are bursting out of their shirt. Like are you kidding me???
Besides all that Quentin is fucking annoying. Like you had no right to get so angry at Alice when you cheated on her first and then yeah you don't fucking deserve her when you never respected her. This book really could have used the different character perspectives cause Quentin's mind is just too annoying for me to handle. Ugh.
Besides all that Quentin is fucking annoying. Like you had no right to get so angry at Alice when you cheated on her first and then yeah you don't fucking deserve her when you never respected her. This book really could have used the different character perspectives cause Quentin's mind is just too annoying for me to handle. Ugh.
Confession time. I never liked Narnia. Books are boring and pompous. Might have been that I was too old when I tried to read them right before the first movie came out. But I tried only to realize they are just not for me.
I had no idea that this book would be Narnia all over again. Narnia for adults with drugs, sex and violence.
I had no connection to the main character. Talk about a flat character. He never learned a damn thing throughout all the trial and tribulations of being a human in Narnia. I understand the whole premise of spoiled kids finding themselves in a hostile world, but it is only effective if the characters learn something out of it. And the only people who did, died.
Not sure what the big deal about this book is. If this is adult fare pretending it's YA - I'll stick to the original, thanks.
I had no idea that this book would be Narnia all over again. Narnia for adults with drugs, sex and violence.
I had no connection to the main character. Talk about a flat character. He never learned a damn thing throughout all the trial and tribulations of being a human in Narnia. I understand the whole premise of spoiled kids finding themselves in a hostile world, but it is only effective if the characters learn something out of it. And the only people who did, died.
Not sure what the big deal about this book is. If this is adult fare pretending it's YA - I'll stick to the original, thanks.
Like everyone else, precocious high school senior Quentin Coldwater assumes that magic isn't real, until he finds himself admitted to a very secretive and exclusive college of magic in upstate New York. There he indulges in joys of college-friendship, love, sex, and booze- and receives a rigorous education in modern sorcery. But magic doesn't bring the happiness and adventure Quentin thought it would. After graduation, he and his friends stumble upon a secret that sets them on a remarkable journey that may just fulfill Quentin's yearning. But their journey turns out to be darker and more dangerous than they'd imagined. (from Amazon)
Oh the potential! I only gave this a three because Goodreads doesn't halves, else I would have given it the 2 1/2 it deserved. I had serious problems with this book. I understand that Lev Grossman wanted to pay tribute to his favourite books, etc. But frankly it proved to be more distracting than otherwise. And while I don't expect all protagonists to be angelic/heroic with flaws-that-aren't-really-flaws, Quentin was simply annoying even understanding his depression and other issues. I felt that the school represented a wasted opportunity. No matter who you are, school no matter the level, is a place where one learns, grows, matures. Quentin did only one of these. Yes, he fell in love, but that clearly did nothing for him. He spent five years there why did it not have any impact on him as a person???? No movement made personality wise. The secondary characters could have been better developed, I would have like to know more about Eliot and Janet specifically what influenced their characters, their motivations, etc.
The best part of the book, was of course the section that took place in Fillory..but it came too late, frankly. I couldn't even summon any reaction when tragedy ensues. Sigh.
I will be reading The Magician's King. I'm curious. Hopefully it will be a better experience.
Such potential unfulfilled.
On my copy there's a smarmy George R. R. Martin quote about how this book is like whiskey compared to Harry Potter's "weak tea." To me, it was more like Bret Easton Ellis with magic, which I found pretty boring and monotonous.
If I were to provide a soundbite description of this book, I would have to say that itâs like the Harry Potter and Narnia books had a literary lovechild that grew into a disenfranchised teen. And that description, while preparing people for what they can expect of the story, really doesnât do it any justice, because The Magicians goes far beyond a simple soundbite description. Itâs a book that I didnât feel that I could review properly after the first read, and so I let it be for a while and then reread it so that I could properly organize my thoughts on this very messed-up-in-the-best-way piece of speculative fiction.
Itâs difficult to talk about this book without giving spoilers, one way or the other. It starts with Quentin, not exactly a boy genius but enough of an academically-gifted teen to provide some dark wit and sarcasm right off the bat. An odd accident gets him transported to Brakebills, a college for magic, and if youâre rolling your eyes at this point and calling this book a blatant Harry Potter ripoff, trust me; bear with it and itâll all get better. The book makes constant nods to the HP series, characters commenting on similarities and cracking jokes, and Grossman clearly knew what he was doing when he write this idea, because itâs done in such a way as to make the characters all the more believable. They know the same pop culture that we do. Honestly, can anyone say that if they found themselves at a school for magic, they wouldnât be making Harry Potter references now and then?
The first half of the book is largely concerned with Quentinâs life at Brakebillâs. The second half brings the Narnia comparisons with the world of Fillory, a kids fantasy book series that Quentin is a large fan of that has striking comparisons to Narnia (and a few other pieces of childrenâs literature from the early 1900s). Through the magic that theyâve learned at Brakebills, Quentin and his friends go between different planes of existence and deliberately enter the supposedly fictional world of Fillory.
The Magicians is, at its core, a great thought experiment. Not just in take 2 popular and enduring story ideas and smooshing them together, but expanding upon them to make them less kid-friendly, more adult and raw and dark. (Not that the HP series didnât dip into darkness a time or two⊠dozenâŠ) Instead of a magic school for children, we have a magic college, with students aging in range from late teens to early 20s, all of them brilliant in one form or another. This creates an environment filled with people who are used to being exceptional and who are now essentially just a face in the crowd. A very hard-working and hard-drinking crowd, admittedly, all of which came together to make interesting social connections, commentary, and the general feel of a superiority complex that ran throughout the better part of the book. Boredom with reality, until painful reality came crashing down around them.
It was the same with the half of the book that was more centred on the post-Brakebills events, the group graduating and heading into the world and living debauched directionless lives until they find their way into an alternate plane of existence. Then they enter a world that they had known previously only through childrenâs books, sanitized and comfortable, and they find that Fillory is dangerous and hard and brutal, its own politics going strong and death looking them all in the face. The whole book takes childish fantasies and turns them upside down, brings to light the cruel realities of how that kind of world would actually function. It rips the gloss from childhood ideals, isnât entirely comfortable, but is nevertheless a fascinating read.
While for me this book was pure indulgence, the kind of book my teenaged self would have both loved and not appreciated, it wasnât the kind of book to just skim through without thought. Itâs impressively thought-provoking, intelligent, and full of the kind of descriptive vocabulary that I donât often see. (Big words abound!) It also has quite a few dangling plot threads, things that happen and never really get properly addressed or resolved. Now, Iâll grant you that this is only the first novel of a series and the story does continue later, but those events left parts of the plot feeling somewhat disorganized, like the author wanted a particular event to happen but couldnât really think of a reason for it, and then just shoehorned it in anyway.
One of those dangling plot thread is, âWhy Fillory?â I understand that Fillory is a world that obsessed Quentin, but most of the others in the group were less interested in the books, having read them in childhood and then put them aside. Until, of course, they have the chance to go there and then suddenly they start mentioning all kinds of trivia about the series. Perhaps it was a case of an unreliable narrator and Quentin didnât know they were all hiding their own obsession as much as he kept his hidden, but their decision to go felt rather forced. An entire multiverse at their disposal (âAll of human literature could just be a userâs guide to the multiverse!â), and they choose to go to the one the main character has been secretly obsessed with his whole life? Nobody even mentions going to any other reality? They were all being manipulated, and that much was clear early on, but for nobody to even mention it seemed like an awful stretch of credulity.
But like many novels where my complaints are largely nitpicky, when you get right down to it, I have to confess that this was a fantastic novel, and one that I very much enjoyed reading. It gets better with each reread, I think, with the knowledge of whatâs to come adding more layers of meaning to past events. If youâre looking for a smart novel that approaches familiar elements in unfamiliar ways, and if you want something that combines solid magic realism with utterly fantastical scenes, then The Magicians is definitely a book you should be reading.
Even if you wonât be able to look at your childhood the same way again.
Itâs difficult to talk about this book without giving spoilers, one way or the other. It starts with Quentin, not exactly a boy genius but enough of an academically-gifted teen to provide some dark wit and sarcasm right off the bat. An odd accident gets him transported to Brakebills, a college for magic, and if youâre rolling your eyes at this point and calling this book a blatant Harry Potter ripoff, trust me; bear with it and itâll all get better. The book makes constant nods to the HP series, characters commenting on similarities and cracking jokes, and Grossman clearly knew what he was doing when he write this idea, because itâs done in such a way as to make the characters all the more believable. They know the same pop culture that we do. Honestly, can anyone say that if they found themselves at a school for magic, they wouldnât be making Harry Potter references now and then?
The first half of the book is largely concerned with Quentinâs life at Brakebillâs. The second half brings the Narnia comparisons with the world of Fillory, a kids fantasy book series that Quentin is a large fan of that has striking comparisons to Narnia (and a few other pieces of childrenâs literature from the early 1900s). Through the magic that theyâve learned at Brakebills, Quentin and his friends go between different planes of existence and deliberately enter the supposedly fictional world of Fillory.
The Magicians is, at its core, a great thought experiment. Not just in take 2 popular and enduring story ideas and smooshing them together, but expanding upon them to make them less kid-friendly, more adult and raw and dark. (Not that the HP series didnât dip into darkness a time or two⊠dozenâŠ) Instead of a magic school for children, we have a magic college, with students aging in range from late teens to early 20s, all of them brilliant in one form or another. This creates an environment filled with people who are used to being exceptional and who are now essentially just a face in the crowd. A very hard-working and hard-drinking crowd, admittedly, all of which came together to make interesting social connections, commentary, and the general feel of a superiority complex that ran throughout the better part of the book. Boredom with reality, until painful reality came crashing down around them.
It was the same with the half of the book that was more centred on the post-Brakebills events, the group graduating and heading into the world and living debauched directionless lives until they find their way into an alternate plane of existence. Then they enter a world that they had known previously only through childrenâs books, sanitized and comfortable, and they find that Fillory is dangerous and hard and brutal, its own politics going strong and death looking them all in the face. The whole book takes childish fantasies and turns them upside down, brings to light the cruel realities of how that kind of world would actually function. It rips the gloss from childhood ideals, isnât entirely comfortable, but is nevertheless a fascinating read.
While for me this book was pure indulgence, the kind of book my teenaged self would have both loved and not appreciated, it wasnât the kind of book to just skim through without thought. Itâs impressively thought-provoking, intelligent, and full of the kind of descriptive vocabulary that I donât often see. (Big words abound!) It also has quite a few dangling plot threads, things that happen and never really get properly addressed or resolved. Now, Iâll grant you that this is only the first novel of a series and the story does continue later, but those events left parts of the plot feeling somewhat disorganized, like the author wanted a particular event to happen but couldnât really think of a reason for it, and then just shoehorned it in anyway.
One of those dangling plot thread is, âWhy Fillory?â I understand that Fillory is a world that obsessed Quentin, but most of the others in the group were less interested in the books, having read them in childhood and then put them aside. Until, of course, they have the chance to go there and then suddenly they start mentioning all kinds of trivia about the series. Perhaps it was a case of an unreliable narrator and Quentin didnât know they were all hiding their own obsession as much as he kept his hidden, but their decision to go felt rather forced. An entire multiverse at their disposal (âAll of human literature could just be a userâs guide to the multiverse!â), and they choose to go to the one the main character has been secretly obsessed with his whole life? Nobody even mentions going to any other reality? They were all being manipulated, and that much was clear early on, but for nobody to even mention it seemed like an awful stretch of credulity.
But like many novels where my complaints are largely nitpicky, when you get right down to it, I have to confess that this was a fantastic novel, and one that I very much enjoyed reading. It gets better with each reread, I think, with the knowledge of whatâs to come adding more layers of meaning to past events. If youâre looking for a smart novel that approaches familiar elements in unfamiliar ways, and if you want something that combines solid magic realism with utterly fantastical scenes, then The Magicians is definitely a book you should be reading.
Even if you wonât be able to look at your childhood the same way again.
Not really sure how I feel about this right now. I definitely enjoyed this but the ending bothered me for some reason.
Letâs get something out of the way right off the bat: I grabbed this after watching the TV series â which I now know to be *loosely* based on the books â and going into insta-addiction, because it is SO GOOD.
I know those who love these books will probably be rolling their eyes at the philistine who did things backwards, but hey, we all get to our reads through different paths sometimes right? âșïž
Anyway, because the TV show is fantastic, I expected so much from this book. I mean, it must be incredible! Surely whoever came up with such amazing world building had to be a genius! đđđđđ
But Holy Mother of Dragons, I would not want to be the editor who tried (in vain, clearly) to pare down the pages and pages (and pages, and pages) of the author going on and on (and on, and on, and on) about EVERY.SINGLE.INCONSEQUENTIAL.DETAIL. of Quentin's thoughts! đđđ
In short:
- decent world building,
- poor characterization,
- excellent story,
- so-so writing.
EDITED TO ADD: Lowered this to two stars after I began reading The Chronicles of Narnia and realized that much of that world-building was ripped off from Lewis. đ
I know those who love these books will probably be rolling their eyes at the philistine who did things backwards, but hey, we all get to our reads through different paths sometimes right? âșïž
Anyway, because the TV show is fantastic, I expected so much from this book. I mean, it must be incredible! Surely whoever came up with such amazing world building had to be a genius! đđđđđ
But Holy Mother of Dragons, I would not want to be the editor who tried (in vain, clearly) to pare down the pages and pages (and pages, and pages) of the author going on and on (and on, and on, and on) about EVERY.SINGLE.INCONSEQUENTIAL.DETAIL. of Quentin's thoughts! đđđ
In short:
- decent world building,
- poor characterization,
- excellent story,
- so-so writing.
EDITED TO ADD: Lowered this to two stars after I began reading The Chronicles of Narnia and realized that much of that world-building was ripped off from Lewis. đ
This was very nearly an awesome book. I loved very large portions of it, but it ends up suffering badly from 90's comic book-style dark-and-gritty which I guess is meant to be realism?
"it's turtles all the way down". oh man I love this book. wonderfully wrapping itself around me with every next page. glad someone directed me towards it.
just finished it and wow. im already reading the next one. what an incredible skill he has in giving his characters voice and depth. incredibly true, you can feel everything they're feeling through the whole book. love love love his writing.
just finished it and wow. im already reading the next one. what an incredible skill he has in giving his characters voice and depth. incredibly true, you can feel everything they're feeling through the whole book. love love love his writing.