Wednesday, July 28, 2010

The Magicians by Lev Grossman



About the book:
Title/Author: The Magicans by Lev Grossman
Publisher/Year Published: the Penguin Group 2009
How I got it: I bought it
Why I read this book: it's about a boy studying to become a magician at a school for magicians, aka: I thought I would love it.

High school senior Quentin Coldwater is just like everyone trying to get into college. When he goes to the house of a Princeton alumni for an interview he gets the scare of his life when upon entering the house he finds the dead body of said alumni. It all gets even a bit more weird when one of the paramedics hands him a package containing the sixth book in the Fillory series, books which Quentin has read over and over again, and because of that he know there only ever were five of them. When he tries to read it, the wind blows it away and following it, he ends up at Brakebills school for magicians.
After this we follow Quentin throughout his carreer at Brakebills, the people he meets and the girl who becomes his friend and later on his lover. Quentin can't forget about Fillory, a world he knows from the books he read about it. They're about the Chatwin children, of which every time Fillory is in trouble 2 or more of them get sent there to fix things and be the kings and queens (2 each) of Fillory. The oldest one, Martin Chatwin, disappears in one of the books and when Quentin and his friends find a way to travel to that world (which does exist after all) they decide to go look for him.

Does Fillory sound familiar at all to any of you? Cause I couldn't stop thinking Narnia, Narnia, NARNIA the whole time I was reading about it. Which was incredibly annoying, cause it seemed like such a rip off of those books (which I loved). They even had two wise rams (the Gods of Fillory) who sent the Chatwin children home when they were no longer needed there. Aslan anyone?
But this was not the only issue I had with the book. Quentin is just not a likeable character. He whines, he's never happy with anything, even though he gets what he wants every time, he's arrogant and just plain lazy and ungrateful. And the author made it seem like this was standard attitude for all of the magic community. I couldn't sympathize with him and I was extremely annoyed by the selfish, stupid things he did. Half the time he's drunk out of his mind, they all are actually. I so wanted to kick his butt and tell him to do something with his life!
The only one I liked was Quentin's girlfriend Alice, who was the only one that showed a caring and mature side.

Probably the only reason I finished this book is because I bought it and I have a hard time not finishing a book and was really waiting for it to get good, which for me didn't happen.
My rating: 1 star

If any of you have read this one and liked it: PLEASE TELL ME! I always feel horrible not liking a book and maybe you can make me see the good sides of it.

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