A review by behindthepages
The Magicians: Alice's Story by Pius Bak, Lev Grossman, Lilah Sturges

1.0

I'm leery of bestsellers because I generally expect too much out of them and end up being unimpressed, and yet again this happened to me. I was ready to wave the white flag when I reached the second part of this book, but I thought maybe just maybe the author was done prattling on about magic, but fifty pages into the second half I gave up. And yes that's right I said prattling on. It was not interesting.....at all. I felt like I was reading a college textbook on how magic works and why. There was no excitment, no rise and falling action, just a single train of magic classes with a few interruptions here and there. Even the relationships fell short and felt flat, like they were being described but not felt. There needed to be more dialogue and less description; give the characters more of a voice so the readers can connect with them, understand them. Sure the main character is going to be easy to understand, you're in his head, but the rest of the characters need more that just what Quentin sees in order to develop meaning to the reader.
There were also parts that confused me, like Quentin randomly jumping into a freezing cold lake with Alice. No explanation why or what happened to them after was provided. What was the point? Their school sport of Welters thoroughly confused me as well. The rules were skimmed over and as the players participated, the rules weren't reinforced. I had no clue why they were making certain moves and casting certain spells. A more in depth analysis of the game was needed in order to make sense to the reader.
Overall I think I would have enjoyed this if the tone was more upbeat and the characters had more depth. I could have dealt with the confusion of some parts if I'd felt more connected.