Lev Grossman

Lilah Sturges

As the newly welcomed hedge Magicians and the traditional students come together for the first time in Brakebills history, things go wrong. A horrible accident leaves a student dead—and the only way to keep it a secret is for the two groups to work together.

The Magicians #2

_____________________________________ 'The Magicians is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to a glass of weak tea . . . dark and dangerous and full of twists' – GEORGE R. R. MARTIN THE BESTSELLING BOOK BEHIND THE HIT SYFY SHOW _____________________________________ In a secret world of forbidden knowledge, power comes at a terrible price... Quentin Coldwater's life is changed forever by an apparently chance encounter: when he turns up for his entrance interview to Princeton University, he finds his interviewer dead – but a strange envelope bearing Quentin's name leads him down a very different path. Instead of Princeton, he finds himself invited to study at Brakebills – a secret college of modern-day sorcerers. Quentin plunges deep into a secret world of obsession and privilege, a world of freedom and power; and for a while, it seems to answer all Quentin's desires. But the idyll cannot last. There are others powers than sorcery, powers that are as seductive as they are dangerous – and when the illusion of safety shatters, Quentin is drawn into a world far darker than he ever imagined. After all, power corrupts. No exceptions. THE FIRST BOOK IN LEV GROSSMAN'S CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED MAGICIAN TRILOGY _____________________________________ Praise for the Magician Trilogy: 'Stirring, complex, adventurous . . . superb' – JUNOT DIAZ, author of DROWN and THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO 'A sophisticated, subtle novel that is also magical fun' – THE TIMES ‘Lev Grossman has conjured a rare creature: a trilogy that simply gets better and better as it goes along . . . Literary perfection.’ – ERIN MORGENSTERN, author of THE NIGHT CIRCUS 'The Magicians ought to be required reading . . . Lev Grossman has written a terrific, at times almost painfully perceptive novel of the fantastic' – KELLY LINK 'The best fantasy trilogy of the decade' – CHARLES STROSS 'The Magicians is angst-ridden, bleak, occasionally joyous and gloriously readable. Forget Hogwarts: this is where the magic really is.' – SFX 'The Magicians is fantastic, in all senses of the word. It's strange, fanciful, extravagant, eccentric, and truly remarkable – a great story, masterfully told.' – SCOTT SMITH, author of THE RUINS

(Book 1)

The Magicians

High Fidelity

He had an iron demon in his back. Who would ever have thought he could do and have and be all those things and still feel nothing at all? What was he missing? Or was it him? If he wasn’t happy even here, even now, did the flaw lie in him? As soon as he seized happiness it dispersed and reappeared somewhere else. Like Fillory, like everything good, it never lasted. What a terrible thing to know.

I got my heart’s desire, he thought, and there my troubles began.

“We have our whole lives ahead of us and all I want to do is take a nap,” Alice said.

Five-pointed star, nicely decorative, plus it acts as a holding cell for a demon, a small but rather vicious little fellow. Cacodemon, technically.

Is . . . is this optional? I mean, is anybody else besides me disturbed by the idea of having an angry demon, you know, trapped inside their skin?”

“If that bothers you, Georgia,” Fogg said curtly, “then you should have gone to beauty school.

“Maybe. Who knows. But I’ll tell you something: I think you’re magicians because you’re unhappy. A magician is strong because he feels pain. He feels the difference between what the world is and what he would make of it. Or what did you think that stuff in your chest was? A magician is strong because he hurts more than others. His wound is his strength.

Sometimes I wonder if man was really meant to discover magic,” Fogg said expansively. “It doesn’t really make sense. It’s a little too perfect, don’t you think? If there’s a single lesson that life teaches us, it’s that wishing doesn’t make it so. Words and thoughts don’t change anything. Language and reality are kept strictly apart—reality is tough, unyielding stuff, and it doesn’t care what you think or feel or say about it. Or it shouldn’t. You deal with it, and you get on with your life.

In the nineteenth century Brakebills had appointed a librarian with a highly Romantic imagination who had envisioned a mobile library in which the books fluttered from shelf to shelf like birds, reorganizing themselves spontaneously under their own power in response to searches. For the first few months the effect was said to have been quite dramatic. A painting of the scene survived as a mural behind the circulation desk, with enormous atlases soaring around the place like condors.

But the system turned out to be totally impractical. The wear and tear on the spines alone was too costly, and the books were horribly disobedient. The librarian had imagined he could summon a given book to perch on his hand just by shouting out its call number, but in actuality they were just too willful, and some were actively predatory. The librarian was swiftly deposed, and his successor set about domesticating the books again, but even now there were stragglers, notably in Swiss History and Architecture 300-1399, that stubbornly flapped around near the ceiling.

Just then, for an instant, the film of reality slipped off the spokes of its projector. Everything went completely askew and then righted itself again as if nothing had happened. Except that, like a continuity error in a movie, there was now a man standing behind Professor March. He was a small man in a neat gray English suit and a maroon club tie that was fixed in place with a silver crescent-moon pin.

There was something odd about the man’s appearance—Quentin couldn’t seem to make out his face. For a second he couldn’t figure out why, and then he realized it was because there was a small leafy branch in front of it that partially obscured his features. The branch came from nowhere. It was attached to nothing. It just hung there in front of the man’s face.

At first, in the first flush of it, he felt no regret about what happened. It was what you were supposed to do. He was living life to the fullest. Getting drunk and giving in to forbidden passions. That was the stuff of life. Wasn’t that the lesson of the foxes? If Alice had any blood in her veins she would have joined them! But no. She had to go to bed early. She was just like Richard. Well, welcome to life in the grown-up magical world, Alice. Magic wasn’t going to solve everything. Couldn’t she see that? Couldn’t she see that they were all dying, that everything was futile, that the only thing to do was to live and drink and fuck whatever and whomever while you still could? She herself had warned him of that, right there in her parents’ house in Illinois. And she’d been right!

And then after a while it seemed like a debatable thing—you could really make the case both ways, it was a coin-flip. And then it was an unfortunate lapse, an indiscretion, still within the bounds of the forgivable, but definitely a low point. Not a personal best. And then it was a major indiscretion, a bad mistake, and then, in the last act of the strip tease, it revealed itself to be what it truly was: a terrible, really awful, hurtful betrayal. At some point during this slow, incremental fall from grace Quentin became.

“Really. Too drunk to fuck?” She had him there. “I could kill you. Do you understand that?” Her face was terrible. There were two white-hot points on her flushed cheeks. “I could burn you to nothing right where you stand. I’m stronger than you. Nothing you could do would stop me.”

There was a time when this had been his most passionate hope, when it would have ravished him with happiness. It was just so weird, he thought sadly. Why now, when it was actually happening, did the seductions of Fillory feel so crude and unwanted? Its groping hands so clumsy? He thought he’d left this feeling behind long ago in Brooklyn, or at least at Brakebills. How could it have followed him here, of all places? How far did he have to run?

As a teenager in Brooklyn Quentin had often imagined himself engaging in martial heroics, but after this he knew, as a cold and immutable fact, that he would do anything necessary, sacrificing whatever or whomever he had to, to avoid risking exposure to physical violence. He wasn’t even ashamed. Shame never came into it. He embraced his new identity as a coward. He would run in the other direction. He would lie down and cry and put his arms over his head or play dead. It didn’t matter what he had to do, he would do it and be glad.

“Just stop talking, I can’t talk to you anymore, I can’t hear anything you’re saying!”

He’d started that little speech speaking normally and he ended it shouting. In a way fighting like this was just like using magic. You said the words, and they altered the universe. By merely speaking you could create damage and pain, cause tears to fall, drive people away, make yourself feel better, make your life worse.

“I will stop being a mouse, Quentin. I will take some chances. If you will, for just one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is. Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there’s nothing else. It’s here, and you’d better decide to enjoy it or you’re going to be miserable wherever you go, for the rest of your life, forever.”

“You can’t just decide to be happy.”

“No, you can’t. But you can sure as hell decide to be miserable.

Children of Earth. No one asked you to come. I am sorry that our world is not the paradise you were looking for. But it was not created for your entertainment. Fillory”—the old ram’s jowls shook—“is not a theme park, for you and your friends to play dress-up in, with swords and crowns.”

It’s a funny thing about the old gods,” he said. “You think that just because they’re old they must be difficult to kill. But when the fighting starts, they go down just like anybody else. They aren’t stronger, they’re just older.”

“I wasn’t going to go back to Earth after I’d seen Fillory. I mean, you can’t show a man paradise and then snatch it back again. That’s what gods do. But I say: down with gods.” 

Quentin hadn’t known she could go. He was a magician, but she was something else, a true adept. He had no idea she was so far beyond him. There was a time when he might have felt envious of her, but now he felt only pride.

The blue fire began in her fingertips and spread, inexorably, through her hands and up her wrists. It lit up her face. Alice opened her eyes again. She regarded it with fascination.

“I’m on fire,” she said, almost in her normal voice. “I didn’t think—I’m burning.” And then in a rising shriek that could have been agony or could have been ecstasy: “I’m burning! Oh, God! Oh, Quentin, I’m burning! It’s burning me!”

The fire left behind it a new Alice, one that was smaller and made of something like blue glowing glass, fresh and hot from the furnace. The process flooded the cavern with blue light. Even before the transformation was complete Alice had left the ground. She was pure fire now, her face full of that special madness belonging to things that are neither living nor dead. She floated above the floor as easily as if she were floating in a swimming pool.

The spirit that had replaced Alice, the niffin, regarded them neutrally with furious, insane, empty sapphire eyes.

He could remember it with perfect fidelity, deep focus, full force, from any angle, right up until the moment he lost consciousness.

The shock of it snapped his chest flat. It emptied out his lungs the way the Beast’s jaws had, not just once but over and over again. He was helpless against it. He lay in his bed and sobbed until he choked. His weak body spasmed. He made noises he’d never heard a human being make. He ground his face into his flat, prickly straw pillow until it was wet with tears and snot. She had died for him, for all of them, and she was never coming back.

The grief he felt for Alice kept unfolding new dimensions he hadn’t known were there. He felt like he’d only seen and loved her, really loved her, all of her, for those last few hours. Now she was gone, broken like the glass animal she’d made that first day they’d met, and the rest of his life lay in front of him like a barren, meaningless postscript.

Jane and Ember left with the pocket watch, shaking their heads. Honestly, there was never any telling what the dwarves were capable of. If they could build a time machine, you wondered why they didn’t run the whole kingdom. Except, she supposed, that they couldn’t be bothered.

Did you think you were the first one to face Martin in that room? Do you think that was even the first time you faced him? That battle has been fought again and again. I’ve tried it so many different ways. Everyone always died. And I always wound back the clock.

It had been a long time since he’d drunk alcohol. It had a dangerous thawing effect on his frozen brain. The ice that kept his feelings of guilt and sorrow under control creaked and groaned. But he kept on with it, and soon a deep, pure, luxurious sadness came over him, as heady and decadent as a drug.

a novel

The magicians

🌞Laur🌞

“If you will, just for one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is. Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there's nothing else. It's here, and you'd better decide to enjoy it or you're going to be miserable wherever you go, for the rest of your life, forever."

A Novel

Melissa Timko

If I could give it negative stars I would. This was part of my Book Club's pick and it has been the ONLY ONE I have not finish. I miss the person I was before I read this book. Save yourself some time and just don't.

Tsu 💙

Ryan Mateyk

The Magicians is marketed as Harry Potter for adults, but I found it to be more like Narnia with assholes, full of bad writing ("Humbledrum farted mournfully"... okay then) and the most immature, whiniest, little baby of a main character I think I've ever read. Two thumbs down.

A new twist on Narnia and Harry Potter, in my opinion. It was interesting to read but towards the middle of the book I started to dislike the main character, especially the constant whining and him having a major existential crisis. To me this book could have been a good stand alone instead of a whole series. 

Ksenija 

Sonia Grgas

Got up to page 105 and realized I could not care less about what happens. There was not one likable character here. A great disappointment.

Zahra

I skimmed a lot of the last hundred of pages because it was just very boring. I disliked almost all of the characters. Quentin and his friends are a bunch of stuck-up and spoiled brats because they can get literally anything they want thanks to "magic". (view spoiler)[Ironically, two characters who are a little more bearable than the others were met by disastrous fate. (hide spoiler)] The ending was not what I expected at all and not in a good way. It was anticlimactic and definitely left me unsatisfied. However, I quite enjoyed reading about the time Quentin spent at Brakebills. The book is not completely terrible but I think I won't be continuing on with the series.

postmodern Harry Potter series complete with hateable protagonists.

WTF did I just read? The writing isn’t bad, but my god is it all over the place. The story is so fast-paced and doesn’t pull you in until the last 25%, which really sucks because you don’t care about any of the characters when all of the action hits. Definitely is aged for a 2009 book. Tries to be edgy but is v much not PC. Feels like a rabid fanfic, in a way. Gore/traumatic points were just dropped in, no warning (which I’m usually fine with!), but it was like those parts of the plot were just dropped for shock factor rather than being woven into the story. Honestly would not recommend lol

(Bre)anne✨

TW to be added later

WTF did I just read? The writing isn’t bad, but my god is it all over the place. The story is so fast-paced and doesn’t pull you in until the last 25%, which really sucks because you don’t care about any of the characters when all of the action hits. Definitely is aged for a 2009 book. Tries to be edgy but is v much not PC. Feels like a rabid fanfic, in a way. Gore/traumatic points were just dropped in, no warning (which I’m usually fine with!), but it was like those parts of the plot were just dropped for shock factor rather than being woven into the story. Honestly would not recommend lol

Geoffrey Froggatt

I love the television adaptation of this series, and I always wanted to get into the books to compare the source material. The novel focuses on Quentin learning magic in college for four years and his journey to Fillory, a mythological place that has turned into a popular kids book. The television show did a great job at using a magical story as a vehicle to explore themes of adulthood and growing up, and I was happy to see this first book did the same. I liked comparing the version of the characters in the television adaptation to the original versions of the characters depicted here. I’ve always been good at separating different versions of the same stories and enjoying them as their own separate entities, and I had no problem with that here, despite preferring the television show more. I like how the Fillory & Further books are depicted in the book version, it reminded me much more of a Harry Potter and Narnia hybrid. The television show did a good job at depicting this as well, but the uniquely whimsical tone felt more pronounced in this book, and I liked the contrast with the “reality” in this book. I did notice that as I listened to the audiobook of this book, it sometimes felt like I was listening to the story out of sequence as we sometimes get introduction scenes and character descriptions after we’ve already met a character, and other occasions where the writing made the story felt disjointed. A major flaw of this book that the show rectified was the lack of Julia’s character. Julia in the television show was easily my favourite character with the most interesting arc, however in the books, we only see her at the beginning of the first book and towards the end of the first book. We only see Julia’s arc through the eyes of Quentin, and only briefly at that. This was a major story flaw in my opinion, as Julia and Quentin’s characters arcs and functions as character foils was one of the best parts of the television show. I usually like when a book features major passages of time as we get to see the characters develop and grow throughout a single book, but I do think that this book could have benefitted had Quentin’s years at Brakebills were further explored and developed. A big part of this storytelling choice is to show that even magic can’t change the monotony of adult life, however this ironically made certain aspects of the book just as boring as it was for the characters. I did appreciate this book for showing the aftermath of years at a magical school, only to be deposited in the real human world. I liked seeing the characters post-Brakebills. I liked the discussions on the source of magic and the possibility of Gods, and I liked certain parts that felt like a magical version of The Secret History, however I wish that this tone had been consistent throughout the book. Quentin in the books is a decent character, but he didn’t capture my heart here the way that he did in the television show. Being stuck in only Quentin’s perspective was also dragging the story down as the more interesting characters are only shown as Quentin perceived them and not as fully fleshed out or focused on in the way I wanted them to be. The character of Margot in the show was based off of Janet in the books, and I can easily say she wasn’t very interesting here and Margot is by far the superior character. This book felt like it was going by too fast and nothing much was happening simultaneously. The last quarter of this book was the most interesting, and I loved how the themes of growing up and leaving childhood behind was more pronounced. I loved how the characters felt more refined and established in the end, but I did wish that the secondary characters had been more of a central focus and that there were more perspective changes throughout the story. The Chatwins were an interesting part of the story and this also made me appreciate them in the television show as well. I think the television show depicted the multiple timelines better than what was depicted here, but I still like what was presented in this book. That being said, I still prefer the television show and how it fleshed out all the storylines and characters. Overall, I appreciated this book, but still prefer the television show, however I will continue onto the next book and finish the series to see how the next books unfold.

Zaira A 

The story overall had some interesting moments and the way magic was use is very different. I can appreciate the effort of creating a very different and unique world. Unfortunately, I felt that the story lack focus and the author brought too many details or side stories that felt almost unnecessary to the actual storyline. 

Quentin character seem so self centered it made the book so difficult for me to finish. I found interesting that most characters were struggling with realistic problems such as alcoholism, depression and drugs. However, I would have prefer if there would have been more focus on there magic power and possibly Quentin specialty. Once I got to the last few chapters which are action pack and full of twist. It peak my interest and attention but by then book was over.

Wilde

This was clearly written with the intention of it transitioning to film and to be honest it would be a great thing to do. At times though it felt a bit jumpy in terms of pacing, there was a lot of filler and things could have been built up a little more. When the action did actually happen it fell a bit flat.

But on the whole I couldn't stop reading it and loved the theme of depression and existential angst.

In a secret world of forbidden knowledge, power comes at a terrible price ...Quentin Coldwater's life is changed forever by an apparently chance encounter- when he turns up for his entrance interview to Princeton he finds his interviewer dead - but a strange envelope bearing Quentin's name leads him down a very different path to any he'd ever imagined.The envelope, and the mysterious manuscript it contains, leads to a secret world of obsession and privilege, a world of freedom and power and, for a while, it's a world that seems to answer all Quentin's desires. But the idyll cannot last - and when it's finally shattered, Quentin is drawn into something darker and far more dangerous than anything he could ever have expected ...

Colleen

2 Stars
 
*An interesting idea that failed to impress*
 
I’ve heard a lot about The Magicians and much of it was mixed reactions. Some people love it; some people hate it. It’s been on my TBR list for a couple of years now, and I was interested in the TV show too, so I figured I may as well give it a try. Well, I didn’t end up hating it. The Magicians simply didn’t elicit any strong response from me other than annoyance. I was mostly just bored. Not quite bored enough to abandon it, but I definitely did not enjoy reading this book.
 
The Magicians got a lot of fuss about it for being a “darker, more grown-up version of Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia.” Having read it, I’d say that statement is both true and false. Yes, I know that sounds contradictory. It’s true in that The Magicians heavily borrows ideas from both of those series. It’s more “grown-up” in that it has adult content – mostly of the sexually crude variety. But there is a difference between non-YA content/language and actually being mature. But I would wholeheartedly disagree with the “If you loved Harry Potter, then you’ll love this!” marketing ploy. And that’s probably where the low ratings come from. That’s the false part of the statement. Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia both provide an escapism to rich, vivid worlds along with having deep symbolism. The Magicians is basically anti-escapism. And it’s a bleak, boring story about a self-absorbed jerk.
 
The entire book had that trying-too-hard vibe. It was self-aware and ostentatious. It very much felt like Grossman wrote this entirely with the goal of writing a dark, edgy version of Harry Potter/Narnia. And much the way Pullman’s goal for His Dark Materials to “be the anti-Chronicles of Narnia” overwhelmed his storytelling, so too did Grossman loss his footing. The story spent the majority of the time rewriting existing works (in an attempted dark, edgy way) and not enough time on original content. Or character development. Or plot.
 
I had heard that the main character, Quentin was a surly anti-hero – a genius magician and possibly a sociopath. And I’ll admit that intrigued me. I enjoy a well-written morally grey character. I was picturing something along the lines of Victor Vale with a magic wand. What I found instead was a boring jerk who was irritating rather than intriguing. We’re told he is a genius but are never shown any evidence of that other than repeated reminders that he scored very well on tests. At different times, the narrative swings between claiming that magic is extremely difficult for Quentin or ridiculously easy; there’s never a firm answer of which is more accurate. Regardless, he is a character supremely lacking in personality; again, that lack of emotion doesn’t seem to draw from any genius-level lack of social skills. He just seems like an empty husk. Quentin was as lacking in evil genius as he was lacking in likeable personality. So I couldn’t muster any empathy for him. The other characters had the same wannabe-edgy façade covering empty personalities. There were some setups that could have helped the story if there had been any character development, but those ended up feeling like paths that went nowhere. The characters simply were not compelling. Mostly they were annoying and self-absorbed which made the whole things feel like a disillusioned, nihilistic rewrite of Harry Potter/Narnia.
 
There was very little plot in this book. I spent the first half wondering if there would even be a plot. The story is split into four parts (I think… It’s only been one day but this story is already rapidly sinking from my mind).
 
Part I: Harry Potter knock off
 
Sure it’s a magically college rather than underclassmen school, but there were far too many ideas that were blatantly ripped off. It even makes jokes about playing Quidditch and how the college desperately tries to pretend it’s English even though it’s in America. This part takes up about the first 60% of the story and is extremely slow and drawn-out. It meanders through all five years of Quentin’s time at Brakebills. There was almost no plot in this section, and it was far too long to spend building up the world and characters. It had the same tedious, repetitive feel that Red Sister did with its seemingly endless loop of years and years of the same classes over and over again. Sure, there was some world building (mostly copycat stuff though) and some character development (barely). But it was so dull.
 
Part II: The Secret History knock off
 
If I had to describe the vibe of this story, I would definitely compare it to The Secret History. If you just replaced the murder mystery element with magic, these two stories have an awful lot in common. They’re both about (allegedly) genius college students in a cult-like, isolated clique who are bored and disillusioned. They spend all their time drinking, doing drugs, sleeping around, and pretending that they are as smart as they wish they were. It was nihilistic and boring. The attempts at shocking with sexual crudeness were pitiable. There were moments when it got a Dorian Gray vibe from the way the characters drift through their hedonistic lives. There were themes about how happiness can’t be found through materialistic things or even through magic. But that message got drown out by how obnoxious the characters were. This was the section when I really wanted to punch Quentin in his stupid, self-absorbed face. He turns into a whiny, emo jerk.
 
 Part III: Narnia knock off
 
At three-quarters of that way through we finally get some semblance of a plot. I tried to muster some enthusiasm, but I’d practically been lulled to sleep by that point and found myself completely disinterested in the characters and their quest. I was bored, and I just wanted to get it over with. It also didn’t help that the few actions scenes were kind of lame.
 
Part IV: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
 
After the half-hearted attempt and plot and action whimpered out its last death rattle of breath, the ending still drags on and on like a monotonous, never-ending epilogue. I was left asking, “What was the point of this story?” I didn’t feel any satisfaction in the events nor any intrigue about the open-ended parts that clearly were setting up for the sequel. I simply was not invested in the characters or what little plot there was. I also felt that the ending undid the lessons that were supposedly learned.
 
The whole story has an anti-escapism vibe. Whereas most Fantasy stories are about imagining a different world where you can be someone else, The Magicians takes that desire and brutally beats it to smithereens. It practically executes it mob style. It shouts in your face, “Oh, you want to be a hero and imagine yourself on grand adventures? NO. You can’t run from your destiny to be miserable. No amount of magic will fix you!” Still, I liked the theme that you can’t escape yourself no matter what world you travel to and how looking for fulfillment in materialism, magic, or distant places won’t make you happy. It could have been interesting and powerful if the story wasn’t such a self-aware mockery of other writers. And at times, it felt like the story was totally shaming anyone who likes to escape into Fantasy stories.
 
Despite all of that, I wouldn’t say Grossman is necessarily a bad writer. There were moments when the writing was engaging, and there were some good ideas in there. But they were suffocated by all the content that was a rip-off of other books. If the story had more original content or had been less of a self-aware gloomy parody, then I might have enjoyed it more. But I definitely will not continue on with this series.
 
 
RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 2 Stars
Writing Style: 2 Stars
Characters and Character Development: 1 Star
Plot Structure and Development: 2 Stars
Level of Captivation: 2 Stars
Originality: 1 Star

Stefanie Viens

A lot of reviewers have mentioned that the characters are pretty unlikeable (in a whiny and not interesting way) which I agree with, but another major problem with this book in my opinion is that it feels like it's trying to fit too many plot points into a single story. There are two or three story shifts (i.e significant change in environment, characters' goals/challenges, etc.) that could probably have been their own book. It gave me the feeling, about halfway through, that the story was really dragging on.

Izza

2.5 stars | God, this was such a disappointment. I picked this book up expecting to love it, and well that did not happen. The characters were flat (and pretty much all depressed and alcoholics. oh joy); there was nothing likable about any of them, the plot was pretty much non-existent. NOTHING HAPPENED, though it picked up a little towards the end. This book was basically a wannabe Harry Potter/Narnia/Lord of the Rings without the awesome.

George R.R. Martin described this book as: “The Magicians is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to a glass of weak tea.” Um, sure George... If you meant Harry Potter is the shot of Whiskey and The Magicians the glass of weak tea... 

It makes me angry that people compare it to Harry Potter or describe it as 'Harry Potter for adults'. Please don't.

The absolute most boring book about one of the coolest concepts. A snooze fest from start to finish filled with the most poorly developed characters. Do not recommend.

Deborah Kerr

renee badenoch

I hate this book. It was a rare book that was a DNF for me. Edit: I DNF a lot of books, but mostly because I read about seven books at a time and sometimes some of them have to be returned to the library, or they get lost, or I loan them out, or any other myriad reasons, but rarely do I quit reading a book because I hate it so much. 

This book is supposed to be a play on the tropes of magical boarding school and magical worlds, where the central idea is like "what if magic were real, but was like, really hard, and what if you got transported to a magical world, but it was bloody and violent and stuff" Which, yeah! I'm all for that. I think Seanan McGuire explores these ideas really well in her Wayward Children series, as does Catherynne Valente in her Fairyland series. This book... does not. 

The main problem I, and many readers, seem to have with this book, is that is boring. It's an ode to academic drudgery. The first half of the book is a five year slog of excruciating study sessions and examinations that are as boring to read about as they are to experience in real life. The monotony of the study sessions are occasionally broken up by the monotony some snobbish bores 
posturing and mansplaining. 

This book sure hates women. By the first page, the Incel main character, Quentin Coldwater, is already expressing his disappointment and resentment that his best friend Julia is dating someone who is more interesting and better looking than him. The audacity! Julia is introduced, as all the female characters in this book are, tits first. At some point I had to wonder if this was the way the main character saw all women, or if Lev Grossman himself feels like this is the most important detail we have to know. The moment I quit reading the book is when a nymph character is introduced as having an indeterminate age, looking as young as if she is perhaps in middle school and then is described as having "small and girlish breasts," followed by the adults characters in their mid twenties describing her as "kind of hot" Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, Gross, man. 

I also have to wonder at the authorial choice to include ableist slurs (view spoiler)[ such as "retard" and "cripple" and "gimp" as well as his repeated tendency to describe a character as "rocking autistically" (hide spoiler)]. If his intent was to make me hate the main characters, mission successful, but I'd also like to see those characters either punished or redeemed, neither of which happens. I eventually quit because I didn't want to spend any more of my time with these bullying shits. 

I was originally going to try to write some of the things I liked about the book, particularly because I think the scene setting and descriptions of magic were quite nice in some bits. But the book left me feeling like I wanted a hot shower to rinse the slime off of me, so NOTHING NICE. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS BOOK. A TRULY NASTY LITTLE PIECE OF WORK. 

Also, side note, but John Green enthusiastically recommended this and I feel betrayed.

Janice Hopper

I've recently watched Season 1 of The Magicians on the Sy-Fy network. There were elements in the series that I didn't remember from the book, so I decided to re-read it to compare. [Mild spoiler: the book and series, while containing the same basic plotline, differ a good bit in the details. Some of the changes are effective; others take the story to more conventional places than the book does.]

The school parts and the Fillory (the fantasy land that figures prominently in the plot) parts are pretty good from a conventional fantasy perspective. The characters are hard to like, though. That arguably makes them more realistic. And honestly, what do you do with characters when you've handed them immense power, and then basic give them nothing much to do with it? It's not like you can go and live a fairly conventional life after you know that magic exists and that you can use magic to do almost anything? I suspect that not many of us would survive that sort of situation as good people.

Anyway, it's well written in spite of the unlikable characters. I've previously read the 2nd book in the series, but not the third. I'm planning on going though the whole thing this time.

Kelsey W

This book as a cake (2022 challenge):
A rainbow-colored buttercream cake with eggshells in it. But somehow, the eggshells create a ridiculous crunchy texture akin to a gravel pile you used to play on as a child before they closed it because it contained lead compounds or something and you find that you can't stop eating the eggshells and after you're finished eating you can't stop thinking about that gritty-ass texture.

Isabela H 

This book was a recommendation from one of my favorite people and they did not disappoint. I don't really know what I expected because I had only seen the show in passing and heard comments about both the show and the book, but I really enjoyed this read. The writing was really engaging even when talking about things that weren't necessarily that entertaining. I would describe this book as CS Lewis but for older readers, and I'm looking forward to seeing where the rest of the series goes.

This is high fantasy down to earth.  
I have read and listened to this book and from the first pages, I was compelled by it. Details in writing are amazing because it gives you so much that you can actually imagine the whole scene you are reading and it doesn't bore you to death. And they have made many annotations of some scenes, even though it is not something I often do. The story itself is about magic but what makes it different from all the other fantasy or high fantasy novels is the fact that it has so much realism in it and it is heartbreaking. It is about showing your something beautiful that you can't possibly have and then in some real-life mannerism it gets taken away from you. And I really liked how the whole heroes end quest thing is not mainstream, it is so much more than pure escapism. I wish I had more words to explain this, to explain exactly what I was feeling well reading this but I'm unable. 
4.5⭐

Ofelia

«Gesù, gesù, gesù e gesù!» Quentin probabilmente

«Quentin, sei sempre stato un vero coglione» Alice, nel momento di massimo pathos di tutto il libro

«Ma il Welters che cavolo è?» chiunque dopo aver letto pagine e pagine su questo gioco assurdo

Quentin è un personaggio veramente di merda. Come descriverlo? Beh il povero Quentin (O "Q" visto che Quentin non è un nome abbastanza da gary-stue) è depresso della serie "mi sono rotto un'unghia!" depressione, il giorno dopo è passata però! poi di nuovo depressione. Insomma il povero ragazzo è infelice, chissà come mai? beh a quanto pare non ha niente. Ha:
-Una famiglia che gli vuole bene e che sta bene. A detta sua non gli interessa del figlio, la verità è che a Quentin non interessa di nessuno e di sicuro non della famiglia. I genitori gli chiedono della scuola e della sua vita e lui risponde e non risponde, i genitori che non sono rompi palle non insistono come tutti i normali genitori (se avessero insistito avrebbe detto che erano i classici genitori appiccicosi) quindi per il povero Q i suoi genitori lo odiano. Poi lui ovviamente non gli scrive quando sta QUATTRO anni fuori casa, torna a casa qualcosa come 2 volte e finita la scuola se ne va senza nemmeno salutare. Ma ehi! sono loro quelli a cui non importa
-Due amici che tengono a lui, James e Julia. Però lui da grande amico vuole bombarsi Julia e si augura quindi che James muoia (in maniera non dolorosa ovviamente, è un caro amico il nostro Quentin!) così che Julia cada tra le sue braccia. Dice che è colpa di James che lui non può fare la parte dell'eroe dei libri ma solo il "migliore amico sfigato" perché James è brillante ed è bello, ed ovviamente è fidanzato mentre lui no. Colpa di James quindi se Quentin è un rompi palle piagnone, ovvio!
Quando va a Brakebills, la scuola per maghi, si dimentica completamente di avere degli amici. Amici? cosa sono? Ma come Quentin non li amavi tanto? A quanto pare no, perché nemmeno li saluta! va lì direttamente e tanti saluti ad entrambi. Li rivede mesi dopo e vede che stanno male, sopratutto Julia ma gli importa? neanche un po', anzi! dice che secondo lui Julia è pentita per non aver scelto Quentin al posto di James, che le sta bene perché ha avuto la sua occasione e l'ha persa ("ma chi ti vuole?!" cit. chiunque). Anche quando lei ammette di ricordare di aver fatto l'esame per la scuola di magia e arriva ad offrire a Quentin servizi sessuali pur di farsi dare una mano ad entrare a Brakebills che cosa fa il nostro eroe? Niente. Cioè prima pensa che se la bomberebbe volentieri, poi aggiunge che Julia è proprio una sfigata a vendersi in questo modo (grande amico, non c'è che dire) e poi ovviamente corre dal preside e racconta tutto in modo che almeno le cancelli i ricordi povera stella, vero? No, ovviamente non lo fa. Fa passare mesi prima di dirgli questa cosa, sapendo benissimo quanto Julia stia soffrendo. Ma ehi! Julia non gliel'ha data lui deve pur vendicarsi no? è così che funziona la VERA amicizia infondo!
L'unica cosa che poteva far deprimere Quentin è la morte di Amanda Orioff, causata proprio dalla sua idiozia ma a Quentin importa? No, per niente! Cioè una ragazza muore per colpa sua ma lui è felice perché WOW ha visto la bestia quindi questo è molto emozionante! cioè la vita è una noia no? quando vi capita di vedere mostri? e se una ragazza è morta a chi importa? cioè lui dice "oh che peccato!" e brinda in suo unore (non viene a lui l'idea ovviamente) alla laurea ma ci ha mai pensato a lei? ovviamente no! si è mai sentito in colpa? ahahah ma certo che no! è solo morta una persona ed è solo successo per colpa sua infondo, che volete che sia?

La scuola di magia è un enorme NO. Che senso ha riassumere quattro anni di scuola in meno di duecento pagine? ma partire quando erano già maghi? quel pezzo è confusionario e caotico, con come unico punto di interesse la bestia che però arriva una volta sola e poi ciao. Anche il fatto che Quentin debba saltare un anno perché è troppo brillante per farsi quattro anni di scuola come tutti quanti, insomma per niente forzata come cosa no? (risposta: si cavolo, ma che è venuto in mente allo scrittore?!).
Arrivano i nuovi studenti e Quentin dice che lui non li vuole neanche, sarebbe molto più bello se avessero tutto lui ed Alice ora che gli altri si sono laureati e che se proprio devono venire questi nuovi lui non ha intenzione di dividere i propri privilegi con loro ("ma come loro hanno i nostri stessi diritti Alice? ma noi siamo arrivati prima!" cit. quel genio di quentin ovviamente) impararsi i loro nomi ma li chiamerà per numeri. Sempre lo stesso numero oltretutto perché non ha voglia neanche di ricordarsi i nomi, infondo lui è importante no? Ricordiamo assieme quando Quentin si prostituiva per avere l'attenzione degli studenti più grandi di lui ma ora che è lui lo studente grande ovviamente deve fare il superiore ed arriva a dire "ma sembriamo snob secondo te Alice?" lei ha la scusa di essere troppo timida per spiccicare parola ma tu non hai proprio scuse tranne quella di essere uno stronzo.
Quentin si descrive come uno sfigato, un nerd, uno che nessuno vuole e nemmeno fisicamente bello. Strano però quanto riesca ad andare contro gli altri come se fosse Dio sceso in terra, in pratica vuole fare il maschio Alpha altrimenti non so impazzisce (anche se non è normale neanche quando fa l'alpha). 
Fa il lecchino con Eliot e forse lo sopporta solo perché è gay (e quindi non gli porta via le ragazze), arriva addirittura a scoprire che Eliot si porta a letto un paio di ragazzi al mese per divertimento e si domanda "perché a me non lo ha chiesto?" wow, lo conosci da cinque minuti e già sei pronto a prostituirti per avere la sua attenzione! ma ricordati che Julia invece era caduta proprio in basso, eh? E' così amico di Eliot che lo vede ubriacarsi ogni sera fino a stare male, a volte lo devono portare a letto in braccio e questo qui sta chiaramente per uccidersi con l'alcol ma a chi importa? non a Quentin di sicuro! si perché preoccuparsi per lui sarebbe da mammine e da sfigati! che importa se Eliot muore? l'importante è non annoiarsi mai! E poi c'è Josh che sopporta solo perché è un ciccione, come a Quentin piace sottolineare ogni volta che lo vede, quindi non c'è rischio che possa "superarlo" fisicamente. Come gli piace sottolineare che è proprio uno sfigato perché è quello con i voti più bassi del gruppo, insomma Quentin sa davvero cos'è l'amicizia ve lo avevo detto! 
Poi nel gruppo c'è Janet che fa le stesse cose che fa Eliot, cioè le piace divertirsi e le piace farsi allegramente gente solo che Eliot è un maschio quindi tutto ok! Janet è femmina quindi ommiddio chi è questa troia?!

Il momento della tesi di laurea è ESILARANTE. Gli altri fanno origami di carta in pratica ma Quentin no, lui vuole arrivare fino alla LUNA! (non scherzo, sul serio!). Cavolo penserete, chissà che ha studiato in quella scuola di magia! (in realtà non ci è dato saperlo, ricordate i quattro anni di scuola in duecento pagine!) però lui crede di farcela perché *rullo di tamburi* una volta ha corso al polo nord in mutande e non ha sentito freddo! wow perché il problema dello spazio è chiaramente SOLO il freddo! non mi stupisce che la sua missione sia miseriamente fallita (ciao ciao Luna!). Ma il bello della laurea non finisce qui, no infatti a quanto pare il preside dice loro che alla laurea bisogna ubriacarsi come spugne e arriva a mettere un non ben precisato mostro nella loro spalla (?!?!?!), una lucertola precisamente che viene descritta grande come un cane (che significa?! grande come un pechinese o come un san bernardo?!)

La relazione con Alice LOL non so nemmeno come descriverla. 
Posso cominciare col dire che la prima volta fanno sesso quando sono due volpi ed alla domanda "ma tu mi ami?" Quentin risponde "eh boooh!"
Il suo "amore" per Alice è chiaramente solo attrazione fisica. Parte quando le sbircia le tette attraverso la camicia (giuro Quentin è un pervertito con la P maiuscola, non riesce a non spogliare con lo sguardo ogni santa donna che vede!) e si ricorda di amarla solo in occasioni in cui lei è particolarmente bella e si mette il vestito che a lui piace tanto vederle addosso, per il resto beh che vuole quella donna? insomma pover quentin lui vuole andare alle feste con eliot! quelle in cui si droga, beve fino a vomitare, palpeggia altre ragazze e alice? alice sta a casa ovviamente! e quando Eliot la offende Quentin non ci pensa proprio a difenderla, insomma cavoli suoi! Oh ma lui odia Janet perché .. beh perché si! (perché è una donna ergo una troia) ma Eliot fa le stesse cose e wow prende anche in giro Alice ma Eliot è trooooppo forte quindi va bene anche se odia Alice e la tratta male, Q infondo perché dovrebbe difenderla? non è mica la sua ragazza! (suggerimento: lo è).
Poi arriva il momento in cui va a letto con Janet ed Eliot e la scusa era "beh ero ubriaco, non lo avrei mai fatto altrimenti!" dimostrandosi oltre che bastardo anche bugiardo visto che ha sempre guardato Janet con interesse e due pagine prima aveva giusto pensato che se Janet glielo avesse permesso lui le avrebbe tolto il vestito in cinque secondi. In pratica il nostro eroe finisce a letto con Eliot e Janet e la colpa indovinate di chi è? Esatto! di Janet! non sua che è l'unico fidanzato del trio, non di Eliot (non si sa perché in realtà, è finito a letto con Janet e con Eliot ma la colpa è solo di Janet?!) si può riassumere il tutto come Quentin fa spesso da questo momento in poi nel libro "Janet, sei una troia!". Perché Janet non era ubriacata esattamente quanto lui? no ovviamente lei è una donna, ergo è malvagia ed aveva PIANIFICATO tutto per fregarlo e far soffrire Alice. Lei da ubriaca è lucida, lui invece è solo una vittima ed Eliot... beh Eliot non ha mai colpa di niente anche quando ce l'ha no? quindi non conta. Arriva a prendere Janet a spallate perché così, gli va! 
Poi ovviamente Alice deve vendicarsi andando a letto con Penny, cosa assurda ma vabbè come tutto in questo libro. Penny che aveva fatto l'esame per passare un anno avanti a scuola come lui ed Alice ma indovinate? Penny non era passato ovviamente. Come mai? altrimenti Quentin non poteva fare il brillante! Infatti ci tiene a dire che Penny è anche ingrassato, giusto perché come un bambino a Quentin piace da matti quando può sottolineare che qualcuno è grasso o brutto (infatti lo fa sempre). Arriva anche ad insinuare che Penny abbia stuprato Alice quando Alice gli fa capire che non è vero neanche per sbaglio e che lo ha scelto lei lui fa parecchio l'offeso (però lo scrittore fa precisare ad Alice che andare a letto con Penny non le è piaciuto, perché Q solo tu sei lo stallone del libro non ti preoccupare!). Anche perché il nostro eroe ci tiene a dire ad Alice che la loro relazione è andata in vacca perché Alice si è fatta Penny, non perché Quentin è un emerito stronzo. Penny in realtà è anche troppo buono con un idiota come Quentin infatti gli salva la vita bloccando una freccia che gli si stava per conficcare nel rene ed è lui che trova il bottone per Fillory, potrebbe semplicemente dire che dato che Quentin è un bastardo ed il bottone lo ha lui a Fillory non ce lo porta ed invece no chissà come mai lo scrittore non fa mai succedere questa cosa (nessuno al posto di Penny si sarebbe portato dietro Quentin, NESSUNO).

Fillory, che pizza! sembrano due libri differenti quando sono a Fillory e quando non lo sono, e quando ci sono sembra una brutta copia delle Cronache di Narnia solo che molto più noiosa e con un protagonista insopportabile. Quentin ci voleva tanto andare ed ha fatto il fanboy scatenato per tutto il libro (dio non si sopportava più!) ma quando possono andarci improvvisamente Penny è lo sfigato perché tira fuori la faccenda. Ma come?! fino a due secondi fa tu eri il fanboy di quei libri, non ti si poteva ascoltare! ora no, deve fare il superiore. 
E' un codardo di prima categoria, passa il tempo a piangere in un angolo e farsela letteralmente in mano e farsi salvare dagli altri ma quando la situazione è risolta ed i mostri uccisi lui è così coraggioso da 
-prendere Penny e sbatterlo contro un albero minacciandolo sapendo bene che Penny non gli vuole fare del male
-mandare alice al diavolo, offenderla e dirle che è meglio morire a fillory che tornare nel mondo reale ed essere una sfigata come lei
-ama quel mondo fantastico ma da della troia alla prima ninfa, le guardie del corpo che gli hanno salvato la vita sono due "stronzi con brutti nomi"

Insomma questo libro è stato definito un "Harry Potter per adulti", a me dispiace per JK Rowling perché deve sempre essere associata a libri di merda. Non ha niente di Harry Potter, è un libro che parla poco di magia e molto di come un protagonista imbecille può farvi perdere tempo a leggere quattrocento pagine di scleri. Quentin fatti curare, è ora!

Gisela Ayala 

Okay, first off, it has never taken me this long to read a book. EVER. That shows how much it captured my interesting. I really had high hopes for this book. For the most part, I loved the idea of the story and the plot. It is interesting! Honestly. I mean Quentin's dream came true for the most part. A magical college exists, just not the way you would expect it to. Which is very much like real life, and I'm pretty sure that if anyone goes into this book expecting Narnia, Harry Potter, or Lord of the Rings you might be a bit disappointed. But I honestly think that is what the author was trying to make us feel. I felt Quentin's disappointment on every page of the book and it mirrored my own. Every twist and turn, I was hoping for magic and wonder to pop out, just like Quentin, but also like Quentin when never really experience it until almost towards the end of the book. And when when finally do experience it, magic comes at great cost, i.e. The Beast. The story is a truly mundane experience of magic, and I hate to say it almost ordinary but as I mentioned before, maybe that is the feeling the author was trying to get us to understand. I couldn't help myself and I kept trying to make connections with other "fantasy" "magic" books that I have read and I just kept thinking of Sci-Fi books that I've read. Other than that, I want to see the show they made based off of the book, but I know that I can definitely wait to read the next one. Although that ending though....

Book started off really slow then took off and by the time I really got into it it was over… guess I have to read the second book now 

Aliya ali

Shay Henrion

I really wanted to love this, but I feel like it was fantasy with all the joy and soul sucked out of it. Maybe that was the point, but god it makes it boring!

The Magicians #2

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