A review by rxh05d
The Magicians by Lev Grossman

2.0

 If you can make it to the end of this book, you can start to see what Grossman is trying to do with it. The theme of the book is a good one and you can see that Quentin is an unreliable narrator, being self-absorbed and emotionally immature. The problems with the book are 1) it took way too long to get there with a lot of unnecessary stuff in the middle. 2) Plot holes, thin characters, and unnecessary trauma make it appear that Grossman was too enamoured by the *idea* of his book ("what if I took Narnia but satirized everything problematic about it and made it gritty and grimdark?") to actually think through and tighten up his plot. 3) It has copious examples of sexism, homophobia, and ableism (racism too but only by virtue of everyone being white) and it at least appears that these are not caused by unreliable narrator Quentin but are actually how Grossman thinks and believes humans think. 

I read this because we're sheltering in place, my roommate had these from the library, and I want to design a d&d campaign set in this world so I wanted to understand the magic system better. But honestly... just watch the show. It's got everything the book doesn't and does a way better job with Quentin. 


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