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j0taro 's review for:
The Amulet of Samarkand
by Jonathan Stroud
This was a solid 3.75* YA book. I think the concept of magicians summoning demons to do their bidding, Satanic-style, with demons having different levels of power, is a interesting concept. Reminds me a bit of SMT. The book is written in the POV of two main characters: Nathaniel, a 12 year old magician; and Bartimaeus, a something-thousand year old djinni. Bartimaeus is the more interesting of the two--he breaks the fourth wall and speaks to the reader via footnotes, and is generally very fun and snarky. Nathaniel is fine as a main character; he is likeable enough but isn't particularly interesting. The writing is very fast-paced and action packed, which I liked, but I think there could have been more exploration of the magic system as it seemed to be quite basic outside and wasn't particularly elaborated upon outside of the summoning demon stuff.