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Dec 12, 2011

Mike (the Paladin) rated it:

I have a Goordreads friend who likes this book. He expressed a thought that I might not. While not wholly correct about my take he came pretty close.:

Well, first Stephen, you're right in a way, I don't like stories that are "downers just to be downers". The nihilistic attitude you see so often. I don't like the (as I've said before) "life is crap and then you die" story. So many today seem to think that for a story to have any depth it has to be deeply depressing More...

18 comments like (43 people liked it)

Aug 18, 2011

Kemper rated it:

A quick and easy way to describe this would be to call it Harry Potter for adults. There's a magic school and a lot more sex and booze than poor old Harry ever had. But that doesn't do it justice because this was an extremely original and unique twist on the notion of what it would be like to actually live in a world where magic and fantasy realms exist.

Quentin Coldwater is a bored teenager getting ready to apply for college but is already seriously disillusioned with his life and w More...

9 comments like (41 people liked it)

Feb 08, 2011

Dan rated it:

Quentin Coldwater is an unhappy teen, eyeing up an uncertain future in college. He's secretly in love with his friend Julia. Nothing else really matters to him except the Fillory and Further series of books he's loved since childhood. Imagine how he feels when a seamingly routine college interview drops an undiscovered Fillory book in his grasp and leads him to Brakebills, a college of wizardry, and worlds beyond...

First of all, this isn't Harry Potter for adults, no matter how mu More...

13 comments like (61 people liked it)

Oct 26, 2011

Emilie rated it:

emi: mr. grossman, i am here representing the commonwealth of language and literature. i regret to inform you that i am revoking your simile license.

grossman:but. but, that is like ...

emi:don't do it, sir. one more simile and i can have you arrested. you have shown a gross negligence.

grossman:well, who are you to talk?! you abuse the common comma!

emi:i do admit to an indulgence with the comma, but i am not charging people to read my writing. if i More...

82 comments like (42 people liked it)

Aug 04, 2011

Stefan rated it:

The Magicians by Lev Grossman is one of the most frequently reviewed fantasy novels of the last few years, which isn’t surprising because the author is a well known writer (and book reviewer) for TIME Magazine, and the book was very effectively hyped as “Harry Potter with college age students.” The end result of all of this is that lots of people who don’t regularly read fantasy have picked up this novel, and many of them had their expectations severely challenged. So, is The Magicians also wort More...

2 comments like (22 people liked it)

Jan 21, 2010

Kasia rated it:

I was ready to love this book, it's supposed to be Harry Potter like but more gritty, more realistic, more substantial, and I guess it is and I still like the idea of it. And yet this book did not work for me. I was really patient with it, I downplayed the initial irritation of incorporating the entire Potter premise. It's one thing to borrow bits and pieces, it's another to rip off a whole concept leaving out a few bits here and there and dressing up the rest. But since I'm a sucker for fantasy More...

20 comments like (89 people liked it)

Jan 20, 2012

Chris rated it:

What a strange little book. Not sure what else to call it, unless it would be a blending of Harry Potter and Narnia with adult content and a heavy dash of the bleak yet often humorous mind-set of a Chuck Palahniuk novel.

And yet, I very much enjoyed it. It wasn't epic, nor heroic. It didn't really have a constructive social message. It wasn't very positive at all. But I still liked it quite a bit.

What does that say about me? Am I negative, with little hope of finding happi More...

3 comments like (14 people liked it)

Feb 26, 2010

D.E. rated it:

This book has been hard-pedaled as an adult Harry Potter and it is-but with a soulless little git like Draco Malfoy as the main protagonist. Grossman doesn't get to the genuine transformative joy possible in books about other worlds and magic, the metaphorical kick one can bring to the reader. This is a cold and sterile book for people who think themselves too sophisticated for genre fiction, a sub-section of the reading public that, I suspect, includes the author.

To be fair there a More...

33 comments like (118 people liked it)

Apr 18, 2009

Mike rated it:

The logline zipping about for this novel almost convinced me to give it a pass, despite having enjoyed Grossman's last novel: Harry Potter leaves me cold; I'm seemingly the only person in the world who liked (the underrated) The Little Friend a whole lot more than (the overrated) The Secret History; the Narnia books--the three I read, resentfully--were forced on me by parents who thought they would appeal to me in a manner more wholesome than the horror fiction consumed by (or consuming) me star More...

16 comments like (56 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2012

Sarah rated it:

I had such high hopes for this "next Harry Potter" novel and was singing its praises early on in my reading. The first half of the novel is very much like an adult Harry Potter book. Quentin is applying for colleges and doesn't know what he wants out of life. Then he gets a magical invitation to take a difficult test in a room full of smart kids. He makes it and sets off to Brakebills College. There he learns magic, meets friends, and realizes that he still isn't a very happy person. L More...

2 comments like (8 people liked it)

Mar 19, 2011

Stephen rated it:

5.0 stars. I ABSOLUTELY LOVED THIS BOOK!!!! I know that not everyone agrees with this sentiment for this book, but I was greatly impressed by it. From the very beginning of this story, I got the distinct feeling that Grossman was going to be taking "the less travelled path" in his fantasy novel. While I have seen a lot of comparisons to other stories (some of which are quite intentional by the author) this book is certainly ITS OWN BOOK.

The novel is really two very differ More...

14 comments like (48 people liked it)

Sep 03, 2009

Cindy rated it:

Okay I am in the minority I didn't really like this book. I didn't think it was going to be a Harry Potter, as a matter of fact I knew it wouldn't be even though it was compared to HP.... the author even compared it to HP which its not.

I can enjoy that this is a "tribute" to fantasy..... but that's about it. It was a depressing poorly written book. Details seemed to be lacking and the only details we'd get is a knock off version of another fantasy book. The characters were More...

16 comments like (55 people liked it)

Aug 19, 2010

Seth rated it:

People love describing one thing as the adult version of another thing. For example, Foucault's Pendulum is like The Da Vinci Code for adults. The allure of this kind of comparison is at least threefold: 1) it offers a simple way to draw people in, by playing on their affection for another work; 2) it leverages against the desire to take in a more mature version of something they already like; and 3) it derides the value of the other, presumably-enjoyed work.

People love to dismiss e More...

3 comments like (27 people liked it)

Sep 21, 2011

Ben rated it:

If you write enough book reviews, eventually you start sounding like everyone you never wanted to be. Today, I'll be the annoying guy who brags about how he saw everything coming. That's right, I found this book utterly predictable from start to finish. Even the Arctic fox sex scene.

The Magicians is a very postmodern type of fantasy, deconstructing as it does the Narnian-style childhood fantasy of saving the world. It's one of those curiously self-aware books that nevertheless st More...

8 comments like (10 people liked it)

Jul 27, 2011

Ian rated it:

A friend gave this book to me as a Christmas present, but the sneering reviews (on and inside the book) which compared it (oh-so-favorably) to Harry Potter/Narnia/LotR (proclaiming them "weak" and this strong and bracing and refreshing and...) kept repulsing me before I could even get to the first page. She's coming to visit me next month however and I'm determined to read it! Updates to follow!

UPDATE 4: A miserable book about miserable people being miserable while do More...

5 comments like (17 people liked it)

Jun 01, 2011

Kevin rated it:

I feel like this book has too many tropes and cliche of all the mainstream fantasy books all wrapped up in one book, maybe the sequel will be better. Not worth the time to read it. Here is where I the reason that I really hate the book so much. First, the author comes from this high New York mind set that only New Yorkers have that they are better than others, better yet add both Harvard and Yale into the mix. (reason why the New York Times and the media loved this book) To me what I hate most a More...

10 comments like (7 people liked it)

Feb 23, 2011

Jason (FNORDinc) rated it:

“BURN THIS” wrote Lev Grossman on the inside cover of my book. Lev was surprised to see a copy of his first novel ‘WARP’ showing up a book reading for ‘The Magicians’. He stated that most of the remaining copies are being used to hold up his broken couch at home. A humorous idea and I wonder how many new authors end up with excess copies of their first printings lying about.

Unfortunately, I think I threw him off his game a bit, and feeling bad, I did not stick around to ask him any que More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jun 01, 2011

Dawn rated it:

I don't know what I can say about this one that hasn't already been said. Yes, it's true, it is sort of a mash up of Harry Potter and Narnia. But it's so much more than that as well. I really liked this book, though I can't really explain why. It kept me interested the whole time through, which not many books do. It was fun and a little dark as well, and it made me laugh quite often. I had no idea that this was a series, and there was another book coming out next year, until I flipped to the las More...

3 comments like (6 people liked it)

Aug 19, 2009

miaaa rated it:

There's only two options dealing with life and it's problem. You stay and fought your way or you run and hide to a fantasy land. Quentin, or Q as his friends address him, never satisfied with his life. It lacks of something and when he was accepted at Brakehills he thinks this is it. But is it? Would he be happy now that he is amongst fellow Magicians?

Apparently this book or Grossman tried to remind us, we all have magic inside us. It's a matter are we strong enough to use it? To lea More...

45 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 02, 2012

Emily rated it:

After reading this, I felt like a bully had just wrecked my favorite toys. Grossman took the sense of wonder out of Hogwarts and turned it into the tedium of Brakebills. <spoiler> He took the talking animals and mythical creatures from Narnia and made them all murderous, stupid or indifferent. The Aslan equivalents were a couple of jerks who were defeated and dismissed with no apparent effort. Even the "good" centaurs had a herd of sex slaves. The character of the beloved chi More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jun 14, 2011

± Colleen of the Crawling Chaos ± rated it:

1 1/2

Where to start?

Some people don't see to like this book because it's too bleak and depressing. Not depressing in a truly sad kind of way, more just the depressing of disappointment. Others don't like it because of the drugs, sex, cursing and copious alcoholic consumption. I think that both of these things are definitely there, but that they're realistic in the context of the story we're being told.

However, realism is not quite the same as sympathetic More...

2 comments like (12 people liked it)

Oct 04, 2010

Jeremy rated it:

One thing I'd like to get out of the way immediately: Whoever it was that said that this book was a shameless ripoff of Harry Potter is madly delusional, or at least overly defensive. I'm not just talking about the radically different tone or plot or age group, either. Aside from the fact that the first half (Yes, half. Five years of school in like...two hundred pages) is spent in a school of magic, I can see little resemblance. None of the spells or methods are notably similar, the game played More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jan 11, 2011

Carrie rated it:

What I liked about this was the library at Brakebills. Because magicians would rather just use a summoning spell instead of a card catalog, the library is gummed up with so many spells that magic doesn’t work very well in the building anymore. Plus, one of the librarians thought it would be cool if the books could fly around, so when someone requested one, it would fly directly to them. So he conjured a spell for that, except they also fly off the shelves other times too, and cluster at the t More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

May 25, 2011

Ryan rated it:

Reading Lev Grossman's The Magicians often reminded me of a line from "Barfruit Rules" by The Hold Steady.

These clever kids are killing me
For one they ain't that clever
Number two, it really sucks when you get stuck here with these Trevors
This was supposed to be a party

The Magicians is clever throughout, and Grossman often seems to go out of his way to ruin fantasy, even while paying homage to writers that we would probably be safe to assume wer More...

4 comments like (12 people liked it)

Sep 18, 2010

Megan rated it:

The Goodreads synopsis for The Magicians claims that it mixes the magic of classics such as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, The Chronicles of Narnia, and A Wizard of Earthsea. I’ve never read Earthsea, but Lev Grossman borrows from and leans on the mythology and world building of Harry Potter, Narnia, and even Dungeons and Dragons (remember those days of role playing?!) so heavily that his writing goes from paying homage to copying to simply ludicrous imitation. Yes, he was obviously qui More...

19 comments like (13 people liked it)

Sep 13, 2011

Emily rated it:

The Magicians features Quentin Coldwater, an alienated Brooklyn high school student, who--en route to his alumni interview for Princeton--is instead transported to Brakebills, a college for magic located somewhere "upstate." Brakebills is his chance to escape from a mediocre high school life, spent pining after an unattainable classmate and escaping into "Fillory," the magical world of a British fantasy series called "Fillory and Further." After a five-year course o More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 27, 2010

Sarah Pi rated it:

I expected The Magicians to be some sort of arch metacommentary on the genre from which it draws its inspiration, like the author's brother's Soon I Will Be Invincible. I actually didn't expect to like it, which made it a pleasant surprise, well written and well plotted. The capsule review I had seen called it an adult spin on Harry Potter; that's sort of true. It involves a school of magic and a bunch of teenagers, but it exists in our world, where Harry Potter has been written, and the charact More...

4 comments like (16 people liked it)

Jul 18, 2011

The Holy Terror rated it:

Overall, this was an enjoyable book. It borrows heavily from many different fantasy motifs while still remaining original. In a sense you could say it's one part Harry Potter, one part Narnia, a splash of Peter Pan, with a sprinkling of The Wizard of Oz, and it's all of these yet none of them at once. Instead of being a blatant ripoff, The Magicians is more of a tribute to these famous stories while also being a bittersweet coming-of-age tale as well. This isn't a story for children though; it's More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 16, 2011

Jennifer rated it:

I can't be the first person who found this much buzzed book a little, well, boring. I was well over the half way mark and not too much was happening. Which, in hindsight, was probably all part of the author's evil plan. Grossman takes the first third of the book to so totally and completely immerse you in Quentin's awful, albeit magical late adolescence that you're practically writhing and cringing right along with him, and channeling his despair that magic doesn't always make everything better, More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Dec 27, 2009

Heather rated it:

I'm just about finished reading the book, and I think the only reason I'm still going is that I'd like to see how it ends. Not enjoying it. And lines like this?

"The little girl's hooded eyes expressed a precocious acquaintance with adversity."

Ugh.

Too many 'cute' allusions to Harry Potter and the Narnia books, too, mixed with a good dollop of the Fionavar Tapestry. Avoid, avoid, avoid. There is one good scene that I'll grudgingly admit to - the Beast More...

6 comments like (31 people liked it)