Lev Grossman, The Magicians

[psocoptera]

Finished this awhile ago but was waiting to post until Josh did too. I liked it a lot. Spoilers in the comments, let's discuss!

Comments

[irilyth]

I enjoyed reading it while I was reading it, but found it very depressing, because nothing good ever happens to anyone. :^p Which is admittedly a fine story, given that Quentin in particular is a serious fuckup, so I probably would've been annoyed if it had ended with his powerful allies swooping in to save him, but still, it was just such a downer. I guess redemption stories are a dime a dozen, but I wanted some redemption here, rather than "this brilliant and talented guy does stupid things and makes bad decisions and ruins his life, repeatedly". I found myself saying afterwards that I sort of wanted to re-read it, because I was sure I'd find all sorts of cool stuff I'd missed the first time, but I just didn't want to go back into that world again.

[(Anonymous)]

I loved the first half: the magician's college was great. Loved the geese (which we heard Lev read at ReaderCon last summer). Burn down the building to get inside---Ha!

But I really had to push to get through the second half. I disliked all the characters; I hated that they needed to hurt each other; I regretted that I didn't recognize the Narnia connections. I read the Narnia books---once, and I don't really remember that world. And that makes me think that I missed a lot of what was going on in the second half of The Magicians.

[(Anonymous)]

---Lisa