The Magicians

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.

Would you be happy if you suddenly had everything you ever wanted? That question lies at the core of “The Magicians,” which is, if nothing else, a serious page-turner. It reads like Harry Potter, if Harry was an angsty teenager and these pages were his LiveJournal (Quentin is feeling: Dissatisfied). I felt that all of the rip-offs (sorry, “references”) were not exactly well-earned, despite the story's attempt to position itself for a more adult, post-YA reader base. The book's strongest points are curiously at odds, with Grossman's wonderfully inventive imagination constantly being desaturated by his dismayingly-realistic portrayal of a young adult in the throes of depression. The book's final chapters follow a fantastic plot twist with a extra-large heaping of indifference, and by the final pages I was left wondering why I should care about where the plot was going, when certainly no one else was.

Alors que je suis totalement séduit par la série, que j'adore, le livre me laisse avec un énorme goût de ... « Meh ». J'ai eu énormément de mal à accrocher à l'ensemble. A mes yeux contrairement à d'autres critiques, Quentin n'est pas plus insupportable que cela en narrateur, c'est au contraire l'ensemble du récit qui manque de cœur. On sent qu'il y a matière à quelque chose d'interessant (ce que dieu merci la série a magistralement réussi) mais qui n'arrive malheureusement pas à être exploité correctement. Je poursuivrai l'aventure, mais plus par amour pour la série que pour ce que ce premier tome m'aura fait découvrir.

The Magicians is frequently billed as Harry Potter meets Narnia. What is left out is the heavy helping that Grossman borrows from a series of unfortunate events, which is, truly, unfortunate. The Magicians is really quite clever, when Grossman forgets to make all of his characters (and as a result, his reader) maximally miserable.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about why I didn't enjoy this book. I like urban fantasy. I like gritty literature. I loved the way the Grossman treated being a magician in a mundane world as something that would mess you up and remove your chances of having a normal life or normal interactions. I loved how academic and technical magic was. And, when Grossman concentrated on his own plot and his own ideas, the results were amazing.

To me, the problem arose in the set of totally unsympathetic disaffected 20-somethings that comprise that main cast. Although we're supposed to believe that they are the most brilliant youths in America, it seems to be a law of physics in Grossman's universe that whenever a character is confronted with two choices, they will chose the worse one. Perhaps it helps that his characters drink copious amounts of alcohol roughly every other page. As the reader, it becomes tedious to anticipate how Grossman will turn the latest plot arc into misery all around. Additionally, Grossman seems to intentionally write unrelated, usually pointless plot arcs that remain without conclusion at the end. Perhaps this is to loan the reader the despair the characters feel at living in a world where nothing means everything. If so, it worked – I spent most of my time reading this book despairing.

The fact that SyFy Network is making a show out of this trilogy is the main reason that I chose to pick up this book and I have to say I'm fairly disappointed. I was expecting this magical world that was a mix of Hogwarts, magic, and Narnia. However, that is not at all what I got with this book.

The book started out great with Quentin learning about the secret world of magic and the magic school in NY. However, from there the story seemed to either drag as he learned, or jump so far into the future that I felt like I was missing so much of this story. This book takes place over many years but I still felt like the pacing was off. It was either too fast or not fast enough.

I also really did not like Quentin as a character. He was extremely brooding and annoying. Nothing seemed to appease him and while he described himself as this nerdy, over-achiever, I did not get that vibe from him. I also did not like how little we learned about other characters. I would have loved to have more perspective on the other characters and their journey throughout the story.

I know this sounds like I really did not enjoy the book and that is only partially true. I still enjoyed this world and the idea of magic in our modern world. But the characters and the writing really dampened my ability to become fully engrossed in this novel. For a fantasy novel, this one took me way longer than others do.

I have no idea if I'm going to continue on with this trilogy or not. I can say it is nowhere on my current radar. I may continue if the show seems to be heading in that direction or if enough people convince me that the sequels are better than this first one was.

All through this story, I changed my mind back and forth on whether I even liked the protagonist. The story feels raw and emotional. The mundane issues that drive the characters to take their next action are so much more relatable than the world or what you might expect would drive plot. It's a real-life coming of age novel with some quirks.

Caution: This story contains some sex, swearing, and abuse of alcohol and drugs. I thought the target audience was a little younger based on the book summary than it actually is.

A poor man's Harry Potter? The college part was readable, there were some fantasy elements, the magic as a boring and difficult thing to learn was interesting.

But when the main characters became seniors, and had learned all they could have about magic, then the books turn into a mundane young adult novel, with two of the most brilliant magical minds in the world wondering about meeting each other parents and what they will do now that college is almost over?

By the way, the TV Series capture the book pretty well. Did not like it either, stopped watching the same part I stopped reading.

Read about 70% (CD 8 of 14)

GREAT book about the “other” side of childhood fantasy and escapism. It explores what happens when self-absorbed bratty magicians graduate from college and experience the real worlds - the dull one that we Muggles live in and the horrifying magical one.

Despite how steeped the book is in references to Harry Potter, Narnia, The Secret History, and Catcher in the Rye, Grossman manages to tell a unique story.

With the new SyFy Magicians series airing, and a number of people recommending this series, I decided to give it a shot. While expecting a more campy Harry Potter adaptation, what I got was a present day magical tale – a combination of HP, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Apocalypse Now. In a book that could've gone very campy, it managed to stay serious. I'm looking forward to seeing where the story goes next.

I liked it well enough. The teenage angst was a bit much at times, but it seemed to fit how selfish Q had been the whole time. There were a couple of scenes that I thought we terrific and really balanced out some of the elements I wasn't crazy about.

This would be a solid beach read, IMO.

And the paperback is cheaper than the kindle edition so it's a definite sand-n-surf candidate.

I found the TV series entertaining and assumed I would enjoy the book. Sadly disappointed. In fact, I only read the first part up to Q's leaving the school. Basically, I got bored. The characters felt one-dimensional or their only features were psychological or social hangups. I normally enjoy books with magic and some form of explanation or consistent system of magic. Sanderson is an example of a writer who creates a world and magic as an integral part of it. Grossman just keeps writing about magic, layers, and layers of it. I just got bogged down in it. Waded through its syrupy form till I realized it had no real nutritional value. No art; no craft, just the loneliness of the long-distance runner paying in blood, sweat and tears, with little joy. Magic for masochists. Couldn't shake the feeling that all the characters if not for their magic were nihilists. In fact, Alice says to Q he's the only one who does believe in magic. Maybe that's the underlying theme and is something that is a factor in the TV series but I couldn't stomach it on the written page. I lost any empathy with the book characters; got bored and stopped early. Whereas I'm looking forward to watching the final TV season.

I liked this. I don't have much to say about it, other than that; it was a quick, fun read, a nice take-off on the wizarding school experience that became so popular after Harry Potter exploded (though Diana Wynne Jones did it first!). The setting was great - I especially enjoyed the construction of magic, and how it was much more difficult than “waving a wand around” (very sly, Mr. Grossman) - and the characters were quirky and fun, if a bit awkward teenager-cum-early twenties nihilist. So yeah; pretty fun, I'd recommend it if you were looking for something light to read, but nothing to chew on or really love.

It was difficult to decide whether I liked this book or not. In the beginning I did and in the end I did but there were moments, several moments, throughout the story where I couldn't help but not care anymore or moments where I just skimmed the pages to move forward and other moments that had my eyes glued to the pages. It funny how divided these moments are into their separate little parts of the book because there are four parts. Read More

I really wanted to like this book, but I end up feeling rather conflicted about it.

The world it sets up is compelling, although the magical system is pretty much non-existent. Even though our “hero” Quentin Coldwater attends a magical school, we learn next to nothing about how spells work, how it's casted, and what potential it has. We're simply told that spells are cast, we see the effects they have, but we have no idea how it happens. For a book that has been, for so long, tagged as “Harry Potter for adults”, it sorely lacks the comprehensive world-building and deeply intricate magical system that Harry Potter has. Anyone who has even just watched the Harry Potter movies could probably name at least one or two famous spells (Alohomora? Expecto Patronum? Avada Kedavra?). Having finished this book, I struggle to remember any spell that was cast, and I probably couldn't explain coherently how magic even works in this world, except that only special people who can somehow wield it gets sent to Brakebills.

I was also terribly uninterested in the cast of characters. Eliot and Josh are interchangeable sex-driven jocks, Janet was just downright annoying and a one-dimensional archetype. Air-headed, endlessly promiscuous, and selfish, she's that stereotype of a high school cheerleader with no conscience, character, backstory, and simply exists to wreck some havoc in the main characters' lives and inject some sex into the plot line.

Quentin was worse. It felt like I had to sit through all that hormonal teenage whining of Order of the Phoenix again, but without any of the redeeming sparkle that Harry Potter generally offers. He was a main character that continually annoyed and annoyed and I could never find it in me to root for him at any one point. The lowest point of his character arc was when he blew up at Alice for sleeping with Penny, even though she had done it partly in retaliation at him sleeping with Janet. I kept waiting for Alice to round up on him and give him a taste of his own medicine, but she did nothing of the sort and that was so, so frustrating. Some parts of the story were just downright insulting to women, and while I get that the story is told through Quentin's eyes, I expected some sort of redemption at the end where he realised what a chauvinistic prick he's been - that never came and honestly, that really dampens my motivation to continue reading the trilogy.

For all its faults, I will say that the book got very engaging in the last third, and I found myself not being able to put it down. The general gist of the plot and the twists it involved were pretty satisfying, and it's only because of that, certainly not the characters, that I'd even consider continuing the trilogy.
, but that never came by the end of the book, which honestly makes me