The Magicians by Lev Grossman
Publication: Viking Adult (August 11, 2009), Hardcover, 416pp / ISBN 0670020559
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Rating: 
Find @ Amazon or IndieBound
Challenges: 2009 Pub Challenge (#8)
Read: November 2009
Source: Library
I decided to read The Magicians mostly because everyone’s been peeing their pants with excitement for it, and I thought it’d be a worthwhile read. I like urban fantasy! I like children’s fantasy books! And so I got it out from my library.
I’m not entirely convinced ya’ll should be ruining your underthings for this book.
Summary from Amazon:
Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery.
He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. Something is missing, though. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. After graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. But the land of Quentin’s fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart.
I think I was expecting The Magicians to be something it’s not– namely, lighthearted– and also I kept trying to read it like a YA book when it’s definitely not a YA book. I think the main plotline (teenager goes to magical school and becomes a wizard) kept tripping me up, because it’s such a YA thing to have in a book. You know? So my own expectations and…lens? colored my reading of The Magicians and that’s probably why I didn’t end up enjoying it as much as I thought I would.
I did enjoy it, sure. Mostly. I liked the whole idea of a magical college, and I liked some of the characters (unfortunately I didn’t like Quentin), and the book has a really British vibe to it for some reason. It’s just that I had more problems with The Magicians than I expected, and I’m not entirely convinced my problems came from the fact that I kept trying to read it as something different.
For instance, I didn’t like Quentin, as I said. He’s more an anti-hero than a hero, which isn’t a big deal (I actually like anti-heroes) but I didn’t like him even then. I found him repugnant most of the time, and it was only towards the end that I felt any sympathy for him. I didn’t like Alice, his girlfriend. I didn’t like any of the other characters except maybe Eliot and that was probably only because he was gay and I naturally feel more inclined to like gay characters.
I enjoyed the first part of the book much more than the last parts. But the last parts were enjoyable in a different way than the first part were. The first part was exciting because it was a magical college, and the second part was enjoyable in a “omg this is really depressing” kind of way. I know I’ve said over and over again that I can’t stand angst, but at the same time I really enjoy it– in a masochistic kind of way– when books take something sacred to me and then break it somehow. So, The Magicians took the sanctity of children’s fantasy books and exposed the underlying crap that tends to lurk in them.
So, it was depressing, in the same way that all dashed hopes are depressing, but it was fun to read about, too.
The problem is that the two main parts of the book seem to much different from each other that it made The Magicians more schizophrenic then it should have been. Then too there were some plotlines that went nowhere– though the majority seemed to tie themselves up by the end, true. But some other things just sort of appeared and then fizzled out and I’m not entirely sure what purpose they served in relation to the overall story.
The writing– minus the characters and the plot, of course– was fine. I didn’t notice anything horribly wrong and it kept me reading until the end, didn’t it?
I can’t help feeling like maybe I’m feeling a little more harsh towards The Magicians than I should. Is it because I’m mad it’s not more YA-ish? Or is it because of something else? I’ve been reading some other reviews and they’ve mostly been saying the same things I’ve been saying in my review, so maybe I’m just overreacting.
I would definitely recommend giving The Magicians a thought it you think it’d be something you like. It’s an interesting take on the world of children’s fantasy while not being a children’s fantasy itself. I read in another review that The Magicians is supposed to be a satire of those sorts of books, so perhaps try reading it that way instead of like a YA book and you’ll probably be fine.
Maybe get it from your library before forking moola out for the hardcover, though.
Other reviews: Fyrefly’s Book Blog | S. Krishna’s Books | Bookshelves of Doom | Beth Fish Reads | I’m Booking It | Jenny’s Books | Medieval Bookworm | Farm Lane Books | Everyday Reads
Thursday Tea is a weekly meme hosted by yours truly. To play along, all you need is some tea, a book, and the answers to these questions: what tea are you drinking (and do you like it)? What book are you reading (and do you like it)? Tell us a little about your tea and your book, and whether or not the two go together.
The book: After panicking this morning about what book to read, I eventually chose Hood by Stephen R. Lawhead. I’ve never read a Lawhead book before, even though I’m familiar with his Arthurian books, and I’m not altogether impressed so far.
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