The Magicians (The Magicians, #1) in Building a SciFi/Fantasy Library

Jul 25, 2012 Alice rated it really liked it

Shelves: adult-fantasy

The Magicians by Lev Grossman can be read as an adult version of Harry Potter. There are echoes of The Chronicles of Narnia as well. One important difference is that the world is a distinctly adult one.

Little by little, the protagonist, Quentin Coldwater, becomes less and less of this world and becomes more of the fantastical world of Fillory. He first becomes a student of Brakebills. With his fellow student friends they begin their quest for Fillory, in fits and starts, after their graduation. ...more

Like · see review

Jun 23, 2013 Liz rated it really liked it

Shelves: 21st-century, fantasy, ya

This is a confusing book to rate because it's definitely a four star book, but that doesn't mean I liked it. It made me think and feel and hate and want to scream and it was an excellent book, but I'm not sure if that means that I liked it in the strictest sense.
It was, in many ways, a book about the betrayal of fantasy - about Susan Pevensie and all the kids who never go to Hogwarts; a book about all the myths in fantasy that sneak under the radar - the hero as everyman, the good versus evil di ...more

Like · see review

Jul 26, 2011 Lindsay rated it it was ok

Shelves: scifi-fantasy

If you combine Bret Easton Ellis' The Rules of Attraction / Donna Tart's the Secret History with C S Lewis and Harry Potter. The book had so much promise. It flows around the disenchanted - how do I fit in aspects of collegiate and post-collegiate magicians, with doses of the college style drinking and hooking up. Magic is really just an example of how unique and awesome the individuals can be. But the author alternates between using the magic as a manifestation of their awkwardness in figuring ...more

Like · see review

Jun 02, 2011 Sandi rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2011, scifi-fantasy-horror-althistory, audio, library-express

One of those stories where the premise is much better than the execution. Far too long with characters who just seemed to drift along. Listened to the audio read by Mark Bramhall who did an acceptable job.

1 like · Like · see review

Oct 23, 2010 Keith rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, fantasy, best-covers

I was told this book was like a Harry Potter book for adults and thought that sounded cool. The book was very good, but I didn't see all that many similarities to Harry Potter besides a few obvious things like going to a magic school and a magic sport that only reminds you of quidditch because it is a sport that utilizes magic. There were many things that Grossman did differently than Rowling, almost all of which I liked. For instance, while it took Harry Potter a full book to get through each y I was told this book was like a Harry Potter book for adults and thought that sounded cool. The book was very good, but I didn't see all that many similarities to Harry Potter besides a few obvious things like going to a magic school and a magic sport that only reminds you of quidditch because it is a sport that utilizes magic. There were many things that Grossman did differently than Rowling, almost all of which I liked. For instance, while it took Harry Potter a full book to get through each year of school, while it only takes Quentin a little over 200 pages to discover magic and graduate. One thing I really enjoyed about this book was that when a character made a mistake, there were realistic consequences. Being a main character does not save you from danger. One thing that Harry Potter books had that the Magicians didn't is the anticipation of action. No matter how mundane some parts of Harry Potter were, you always knew that a confrontation with Voldemort was going to occur. There isn't a clear enemy in this book until the very end. This wasn't that much of a problem since I didn't find any part of the book particularly boring. All in all it was very entertaining and I rarely put it down. Tough to find some original fantasy book like this.

After I finished the series update: Now that I'm done, I have to say that the series went pretty steadily downhill from the first book. The first book reminded me of Harry Potter in that I was full of wonder and immersed in the magical world that Grossman created. The second two books are basically all about how those magical worlds really suck. It would be like reading Harry Potter, and in book 2 you find out that for Harry to cast a spell, a puppy has to be strangled. And Dumbledore is raping all of the students. It may be a more realistic world in the sense that there are really dark parts of it, but it is really not very enjoyable to read about that kind of thing. I would've liked it much better if Grossman would've just tied off loose ends at the end of The Magicians and made it a stand-alone novel. That would've been awesome. ...more

Like · see review