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3.44 AVERAGE
3.44 AVERAGE
I would more accurately rate this around a 2.5. My first comment is that Quentin is one of the shittiest guys ever. He's a winy pissbaby who doesn't understand why cheating on your girlfriend is a problem, but when she does it, it's a problem. It also made me very uncomfortable when he assumed Fen was a lesbian. Like seriously? That shit is not cool. I also did not enjoy the fact that Alice had to die. The trope of a girl being better at anything than a boy naturally and them falling in love and her dying which causes him to become more powerful is such an overused trope and I disliked the way it was used. The pace of the novel was also very strange: there were a lot of unnecessary time skips that could have been filled. I wished we could have seen more of Breakbills, and of Julia's magical training. Like, where the fuck did that come from? There were just a lot of things that bothered me with this book, even if it's not the worst one I've ever read.
i hate quentin coldwater i dont care if he has clinical depression i spent money on this book 3 years ago and im still bitter
I thought the show was bad, but I never thought the book could be any worse. I was wrong. So very very very wrong. This is one of the worst things I have ever read. The narrator is the worst I have ever encountered. I actually liked Quentin a bit in the beginning of the show, but the book version gave me exactly zero reasons to ever like him. I get that he has depression and stuff™ but he didn't also have to be the worst person ever! And never ever grow.
I at least liked a few characters in the show enough to put up with the rest of the terrible cast and plot. I loved Penny in the show and I can't believe the book version of him is so awful. Whoever redesigned his character for the show did us all an enormous favor!
I at least liked a few characters in the show enough to put up with the rest of the terrible cast and plot. I loved Penny in the show and I can't believe the book version of him is so awful. Whoever redesigned his character for the show did us all an enormous favor!
I don't know how to rate this book.
I really don't.
The thing with the magicians is that it offended me so much but at the same times i liked some aspects of it, BUT i hated Quentin soooooooo much. Everything that happens is his fault. EVERY SINGLE TRAGEDY IS HIS FAULT and he never has to pay for it. He just gets away with it and it killed me through out the book.
Reading This was torture for me . It took me A WHOLE WEEK to read it.
Overall i hated Quentin, eliot and Janet
And i liked penny, Alice, josh and anais
But more alice she was the inly reason i actually kept reading. 😭😭
I really don't.
The thing with the magicians is that it offended me so much but at the same times i liked some aspects of it, BUT i hated Quentin soooooooo much. Everything that happens is his fault. EVERY SINGLE TRAGEDY IS HIS FAULT and he never has to pay for it. He just gets away with it and it killed me through out the book.
Reading This was torture for me . It took me A WHOLE WEEK to read it.
Overall i hated Quentin, eliot and Janet
And i liked penny, Alice, josh and anais
But more alice she was the inly reason i actually kept reading. 😭😭
People will probably hate me for this comparison, but the first half of this book read, to me, like Catcher in the Rye. I did not enjoy Catcher in the Rye because it was the story of a pretentious, brooding super smart young guy in school and nothing really happened most of the book. Well, that's the first half of The Magicians. We follow the story of a brooding, pretentious super smart young guy as he goes through magic school. Some things do happen, but overall, I didn't really care about what was happening at the school.
Once things got going in the last half of the book, I got really into it. This was the most exciting part of the book and I wish I would have spent more time there. Then this book would have been fantastic.
The rest of the series apparently spend all their time similar to the last half of the book. That's the only reason I'm planning on finishing the series. Because the last half of the book was really good. Since the first half wasn't, this book only gets three stars.
Once things got going in the last half of the book, I got really into it. This was the most exciting part of the book and I wish I would have spent more time there. Then this book would have been fantastic.
The rest of the series apparently spend all their time similar to the last half of the book. That's the only reason I'm planning on finishing the series. Because the last half of the book was really good. Since the first half wasn't, this book only gets three stars.
Not entirely sure what to make of this novel. It is certainly inventive and clever. A cynical, pragmatic, adult take on children's magical fantasy. It's wonderfully meta and the way it engages with the fantastical concepts of Harry Potter and Narnia is both depressing and oddly magical in itself. And yet its cynicism is draining. Quentin is so relentlessly dislikable for all that he is relatable. And at the end, I'm not quite sure what the book is trying to say. Perhaps that it's all futile. It seems to present the reader with the worst of human nature - and confirm that perspective. Interesting, intriguing, very imaginative and yet ultimately bleak. Great story though! My point of actual criticism was that I felt the characters lacked separate voices. Perhaps that was just seen through Quentin's self-absorbed perspective but I found it hard to distinguish or care about the other characters in the story. They all sounded like Quentin. Perhaps that was the point.
Overall I'm glad i read it. I'm not sure I'm going to pursue a sequel if there is one, however.
Overall I'm glad i read it. I'm not sure I'm going to pursue a sequel if there is one, however.
This book was basically what would happen if you decided to combine Harry Potter, Narnia, Alice and Wonderland, and A Wrinkle in Time, and then replaced the curious children with a main character that spends the whole book acting as an annoying, self-hating, used-to-be childhood genius, in the form of a 21 year old.
However, the book was very good. Though the self-loathing (and also the self-obsession) of the main character made you absolutely hate him at times, it made sense, and it made the story very real. The choice in main character basically took all of these childhood fantasy stories, made them real, and then brought them down to Earth. A rugged sense of grittiness, self-deprecation, and depression underlined the entire book, bringing a much more human view to the whole idea of magic and fantasy. In addition to the main character being a three-dimensional, cynical representation of an actual human, most of the other characters were fleshed out as well. Even the minor characters weren't perfect, and the division of the book into four "books" made the story progress with age. The characters all had both good and bad sides, which made them believable.
This believably left me hating almost every one of the characters, yet I thoroughly enjoyed being able to hate them. In fact, that was one of the reasons I enjoyed the book so much, and spent practically a whole day reading it. As a cynical teenager myself, I'd like to express that Grossman definitely hit the mark (or at least close to it), and although gross and unwanted at times, I appreciated the brutal honesty of Quentin's thoughts.
Overall, pretty cool.
However, the book was very good. Though the self-loathing (and also the self-obsession) of the main character made you absolutely hate him at times, it made sense, and it made the story very real. The choice in main character basically took all of these childhood fantasy stories, made them real, and then brought them down to Earth. A rugged sense of grittiness, self-deprecation, and depression underlined the entire book, bringing a much more human view to the whole idea of magic and fantasy. In addition to the main character being a three-dimensional, cynical representation of an actual human, most of the other characters were fleshed out as well. Even the minor characters weren't perfect, and the division of the book into four "books" made the story progress with age. The characters all had both good and bad sides, which made them believable.
This believably left me hating almost every one of the characters, yet I thoroughly enjoyed being able to hate them. In fact, that was one of the reasons I enjoyed the book so much, and spent practically a whole day reading it. As a cynical teenager myself, I'd like to express that Grossman definitely hit the mark (or at least close to it), and although gross and unwanted at times, I appreciated the brutal honesty of Quentin's thoughts.
Overall, pretty cool.
I've been hearing about this book for ages and finally got around to reading it. It is stunning. It's Narnia meets Harry Potter meets adult cynicism. A perfect blending of fantasy and bitter realism. For all of us who still believe just a little bit that we might get our Hogwarts letter a decade late, find a door into Narnia, get sent to the Jedi academy or have Gandalf show up at our door-- this is the book for us. For all of us who feel sometimes like we are stuck in the alternate time line part of the Sci-Fi movie where everything seems wrong and we don't know quite why, the one where we didn't discover the Stargate or make contact with the Vulcans and we've been denied our great adventure. This is the book for us. It imagines what would happen if after all this time spent looking and wanting it, our adventure finally arrived.
The main reason I docked it 1/2 a star is because Quentin has some moments of blatant misogyny and it irritated me. I realize that may be Quentin and not the author, but still. Also there were definitely moments where the narrative dragged. So 4.5 stars.
On to book 2.
The main reason I docked it 1/2 a star is because Quentin has some moments of blatant misogyny and it irritated me. I realize that may be Quentin and not the author, but still. Also there were definitely moments where the narrative dragged. So 4.5 stars.
On to book 2.
This book was really weird and nothing I would have expected (the part in Antarctica??)
This is also the first time I've read a book with such an unlikeable main character. Quentin was so whiney and unsatisfied with anything in his life and constantly on the lookout for the next thing that would be /it/ the thing that would just click for him and make everything make sense. In the process he just fucks up everything for everyone.
Nonetheless i still enjoyed reading about brakebills. The later part of the book when they were in fillory maybe not as much, but I'm still excited about the rest of the series.
This is also the first time I've read a book with such an unlikeable main character. Quentin was so whiney and unsatisfied with anything in his life and constantly on the lookout for the next thing that would be /it/ the thing that would just click for him and make everything make sense. In the process he just fucks up everything for everyone.
Nonetheless i still enjoyed reading about brakebills. The later part of the book when they were in fillory maybe not as much, but I'm still excited about the rest of the series.