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A review by daphelba
The Magician King by Lev Grossman
4.0
So here's the thing...
I'm sort of reviewing this book as "A Review of the Series So Far".
Quentin IS too grumpy and unhappy for his own good, but he starts to address this toward the end of book two.
Quentin and other characters discuss how much they desire a world with magic, where you can wave your hands, waggle your fingers and make your dreams come true with minimal effort. They desire it so they feel they deserve it...but really, I can't think of a single person that doesn't wish they had magic at least one day a week. My house would be cleaner, I'd be smarter, and I'd find some way to make a little more money.
And then once they HAVE magic they think they are entitled to it.
I can understand this to a point. If you know something greater and easier exists, life would always seem a little grayer without the ability to have that thing, especially when you had it fully in your grasp.
I've seen the bad reviews...
...and I agree with them. Mostly.
I'm sort of reviewing this book as "A Review of the Series So Far".
Quentin IS too grumpy and unhappy for his own good, but he starts to address this toward the end of book two.
Quentin and other characters discuss how much they desire a world with magic, where you can wave your hands, waggle your fingers and make your dreams come true with minimal effort. They desire it so they feel they deserve it...but really, I can't think of a single person that doesn't wish they had magic at least one day a week. My house would be cleaner, I'd be smarter, and I'd find some way to make a little more money.
And then once they HAVE magic they think they are entitled to it.
I can understand this to a point. If you know something greater and easier exists, life would always seem a little grayer without the ability to have that thing, especially when you had it fully in your grasp.
Despite the whining, and the hard-to-like characters, I still really like this series.
Something about the way Grossman writes this fantasy world and all of his subplots like "Why?" is not an important question. The way the Fillory books were so much like C.S. Lewis' Narnia, but somehow more magical, more enticing, and I wanted them to be real so badly. The way I'm hardly sympathetic to any of his characters, yet I still want to read about them.
I'm frustrated at times. I want to smack a character. Rip out some pages. Give up. But I'm halfway through with book number three and I want to know how he pulls it all together.