ilana

A pageturner, for sure. A nearly-grown-up malcontent escapé from the Gifted and Talented track makes his way to a magic school and then to not!Narnia? Sign me up!

The prose is tight, fun, unique, and rollicking. The worldbuilding is interesting – it knowingly sacrifices originality for wink-and-nudge callbacks, referencing Harry Potter, Narnia, Lord of the Rings, Earthsea, and (possibly) the film Pan's Labyrinth. The imagery was often extremely vivid, and immersive – I often felt like I was physically there, on the welters court, in a snowfield, cruising at altitude above the world. And I wanted desperately, at all times, to know what would happen next.

In the end, though, I was left feeling cold. Quentin didn't seem to experience much personal growth through the 400-some pages of the book, despite going through incredible numbers of unique and challenging experiences over four or five years in total. However, he seemd to accrue only trauma, and little wisdom, by the end of the book. I found him more difficult to like the more time passed in the story; surely, I kept thinking, now he'll begin to grow as a person. But it never really happened.

The other characters often felt thinly written, too. They were so dynamic that I wanted to know more about their inner lives, but these were only ever hinted at. They seemed to exist mostly as foils to or supports for Quentin, which in the case of Alice was particularly disappointing, given how her story ultimately shook out.

I enjoyed this, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it.

I have been re-reading this book on a yearly or twice-yearly basis since probably 2008. Few things are sadder for me than knowing there's no more writing to be had from this author – I wish him well, wherever he is!

I can't really say more about how good this story is, but the fact that I've returned to it time and time and time again indicates to me that this is a story that's held up year or over year and has stood the test of time.

Go and read it yesterday!

I got about a third of the way through this before a) it was recalled by the library and b) I got bored. I was excited to read this because because so many readers had sung its praises and becauseI remembered liking Circe, but I found the main character dull and the love interest even duller. Maybe I'll give it another go someday, but as it stands I'm not really sure what people like about this book beyond the concept.

A very quick read, and enjoyable. Like much of Stavans' work, there's nearly as much memoir as there is history, but so long as you like Stavans' personality, this is not a bad thing. I would have liked more information on linguistics, but that's not this book; unfortunately, linguistics and linguistic anthropology coverage is a little thin on the ground. But Stavans is an engaging writer and this book is very accessible. A good read for Shabbat, if you keep it.