The Magician King

4,5 stars, I guess.

I swear I need to push my best friend into reading this to be able to decide if I'm seriously broken and that's why I love this. It's weird, because I usually don't like too depressing books, but something about this was right up my alley.

So our little depressing quest continues with the kids (minus Josh) go back to Fillory to become kings and queens. But of course it's not that easy, someone actually fucked up big time and now gods are about to take magic away from humans. You can't let that happen, can you? Quentin needs to save the world this time, or at least the world he loves.

I have to be honest, not sure why I liked the characters more; because I developed some kind of a fondness for them, as you get used to your mean, old, horrible cat and start to love him? Or maybe they were a bit less dickish, because they actually needed to do things, instead of just sitting around, being witty and getting drunk. Not having Janet around all that much helped as well, as I think she's the least likeable of all the Brakebills. The others have redeeming qualities (Eliot dishes out the best lines), but she's just too spoilt and too... like someone I used to know. My bad?

We also go back and get some explanations about Julia, alternating with the chapters of Quentin being on adventure. I generally really like this kind of a thing, it just makes me more likely to keep reading, which doesn't help with sleeping, but at this point I'm okay with that. Julia is not my favourite, though, I don't really care about her, but this was neat, still.
Now I just want them to do the same with Penny. I love him so much and he's still alive!!!! Surprise, motherfucker. I love it. Yes, Quentin hates his guts, but suck it up man, Penny is awesome.

The end was a bit frustrating, not gonna lie. I understand why Quentin did what he did, he is actually developing into a person much more empathic and a real king worth the name, but at the same time it feels like we keep taking steps backs. But hey, we still have one more book and I'm sure Mr. Grossman filled it with something.

All in all, I was definitely impressed with this one and I'm picking up the last one soon enough. I still need something to read in between, especially because I'm going on a little mini holiday and this just doesn't feel like a holiday read. I want to savour it or something. I don'‘t have much else to say about it, honestly, so lets just leave it at that for now.

So long and long live the Kings. And the Queens. (Shit, so much royalty.)