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A review by lizzycatslibrary
The Magicians by Lev Grossman
1.0
Where do I even begin with this book? I am sad to say that it did not live up to the expectations that were given to me by those who lent me the book.
The characters are weak. The story line is weak. Everything about it is weak. I feel like the author was aiming for something of Harry Potter proportions and just ended up with crap. It was like he didn't even really know what he wanted to write about until the end of the book.
It starts off interestingly enough with the discovery of Brakebills and the fact that the students are magicians. But as the story goes on all I could think of was what the hell is going on here? The entire first 75% of the book was just a mash-up of random events that didn't really seem to mean anything except for an attempt to get through the entire however many years of Quentin's education as quickly as possible. I could not tell what the point of so much of it was, and nothing seemed to have any purpose behind it. Random snippets here and there about Fillory would inevitably creep in... and every single time I wanted to chuck the book across the room because the story within the story was just so bad.
To say that I was mildly shocked that they didn't actually get to Fillory until the last 20% of the book is an understatement. It was like all of a sudden Grossman remembered that was the point of his book and thus had to mash in this strange adventure for a random cast of characters that we hardly felt any connection to. The story in Fillory was sad and just plain weird. Made no sense. Had no point. Just... weird. Everything was just weird.
I heard there was a sequel to this book but I am afraid to read them in case the sequel is as bad as the stories of Fillory within the novel.
I am looking forward to moving onto another book.
The characters are weak. The story line is weak. Everything about it is weak. I feel like the author was aiming for something of Harry Potter proportions and just ended up with crap. It was like he didn't even really know what he wanted to write about until the end of the book.
It starts off interestingly enough with the discovery of Brakebills and the fact that the students are magicians. But as the story goes on all I could think of was what the hell is going on here? The entire first 75% of the book was just a mash-up of random events that didn't really seem to mean anything except for an attempt to get through the entire however many years of Quentin's education as quickly as possible. I could not tell what the point of so much of it was, and nothing seemed to have any purpose behind it. Random snippets here and there about Fillory would inevitably creep in... and every single time I wanted to chuck the book across the room because the story within the story was just so bad.
To say that I was mildly shocked that they didn't actually get to Fillory until the last 20% of the book is an understatement. It was like all of a sudden Grossman remembered that was the point of his book and thus had to mash in this strange adventure for a random cast of characters that we hardly felt any connection to. The story in Fillory was sad and just plain weird. Made no sense. Had no point. Just... weird. Everything was just weird.
I heard there was a sequel to this book but I am afraid to read them in case the sequel is as bad as the stories of Fillory within the novel.
I am looking forward to moving onto another book.