Just a comment:
Great story. Characters that could be each one a book.
Maybe magic would be like that if it was real...

read about @:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111751056&sc=nl&cc=... ( )

What an utterly joyless book. Think of Harry Potter Narnia Earthsea LOTR and remove all the joy, charm and sense of wonder and fill that void instead with self-pity, misery and rank cynicism and what you have is this book. ( )

As [b:An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork|105614|An Interrupted Life The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork|Etty Hillesum|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1312061713s/105614.jpg|3953335] proved to be such a moving and powerful reading experience, I took a break in the middle of it to read something lighter. ‘The Magicians’ was ideal for this purpose. As I recall, a friend recommended it to me years ago as pretty weird, but I only become truly interested in reading it once I heard that the TV show is entertaining trash nonsense. My ‘Read the Book First’ policy obviously applied, so here we are. I can certainly see how it could make an amusingly trashy show. ‘The Magicians’ is essentially Harry Potter crossed with Donna Tartt’s [b:The Goldfinch|17333223|The Goldfinch|Donna Tartt|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1451554970s/17333223.jpg|24065147]. Not as well written as the latter, but the protagonists have a great deal in common. Quentin Coldwater, the main character here, is a disaster and a generally terrible person, yet I felt some sympathy for him given his similarities to [b:The Goldfinch|17333223|The Goldfinch|Donna Tartt|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1451554970s/17333223.jpg|24065147]’s Theo Decker. Both characters have messed-up childhoods, make very bad decisions, get way too into drinking and drugs, have very close friends who are a bad influence, and fixate unhealthily on women. They completely lack self-awareness and could do with a lot of therapy, but instead convince themselves that one specific woman can make them happy. The main difference is that Quentin can do magic. Also Quentin doesn't narrate in the first person, something I was very grateful for. His relationship with Alice and behaviour when it breaks down are absolutely terrible.

Nonetheless, this is an extremely entertaining novel. It engages really well with a question that I always have when I read fantasy and that rarely gets addressed: what is the purpose of magic? Why bother with it? Here, the situation is that clever kids do an intensive four year undergraduate magic degree in a setting vaguely like Oxbridge, then leave to find that their finely honed skills are useless. I was surprised that they didn’t all turn into supervillains, frankly. Instead, they got very drunk until some pretext for adventure emerged. (I’m teetotal, so in that situation would totally have taken the supervillain option. Brakebills really didn’t seem to foster a sense of initiative or critical thinking.) Although the main characters are definitely a flawed bunch, they’re also curiously convincing and compelling. Nearly every decision they make is bad, yet I wanted to know what the next poor choice would be. There is also a pleasing amount of surreal, often hilarious weirdness in this particular magical world. Grossman clearly enjoys parodying many of the traditional fantasy tropes; nearly half the book plays around with a very thinly disguised Narnia analogue.

I couldn’t help noticing that the cover and blurb of the edition I read misleadingly implied that this is some kind of super-serious high fantasy. It included the strapline, ‘In a secret world of forbidden knowledge, power comes at a terrible price…’ This could more accurately be expressed as, ‘In a secret world of drunk idiots, the price of power is having no use for it.’ Although Quentin really needs to get his shit together, stop projecting, and sort out his issues with women, I'm impatient to read the sequel and find out what foolish shenanigans he and his pals gets into next. ( )

A lot of people seem to be comparing this to Harry Potter. These people completely missed the point. This book is a parody of the fantasy genre as a whole, and specifically the young adult section of it, bringing the gritty realism of modern life to a genre that tends to be much more light-hearted and happy ending oriented. The comparison with Harry Potter is obvious when the book starts off taking place in a magical school, but any fan of young adult fantasy will also see as much reference to Narnia and The Once and Future King, along with smaller allusions to other works of fantasy. Basically imagine a conglomeration of young adult fantasy where the protagonist is a disenfranchised youth (think Holden Caufield but slightly less annoying). ( )

Collegiate Harry Potter sans the enchantment and intrigue. I loved the premise, oft looked about for the plot, and detested the cold, embittered narrative. ( )

While the writing was inconsistent, really liked the overall coming of age story! The 2nd half was definitely the best part. ( )

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS BELOW!

Okay I will be honest, more-or-less halfway through this book I just wanted it to end. When I saw the blurb on the back about how it's supposed to be "Harry Potter and Narnia... for adults!", I will admit, it's what drew me in. I'm always up for a good fantasy that works along the lines of fantasies I've enjoyed in the past. The problem is, Grossman draws mainly off the formulas for fantasies that have worked in the past. When it says "Harry Potter and Narnia for adults," that's just about all it is, you just add sex, drugs, and cussing.
The plot entails one Quentin Coldwater, your typical gloomy, my-life-sucks teenager. Quentin has an obsession with a series of books about the fictional Chatwin children, who travel to the magical land of Fillory by going through a grandfather clock, and help defeat evil (sound familiar?). Quentin would like nothing more than to have magic powers and escape from his dreary New York life into Fillory. Not long after, he by chance gains entrance into Brakebills, a school for magic – a lot like Hogwarts, but in upstate New York. From there on, he makes some friends and becomes a real magician, only to find that the world of magic is much more boundless and dangerous than it seems.
Now, despite the generic-fantasy-formula, the book probably still could have worked, but there are other problems too. For one, the main characters are basically insufferable. Quentin, our hero, is for lack of better words, a whinging, immature idiot. There haven't been a lot of characters out there in the literary world that I've wanted to strangle blue, but Quentin has a special spot in that list. There is not really any kind of personal development for the characters. They don't really seem to learn anything at all from their mistakes and problems. When something bad happens, they whine about it then continue along the same track. Another issue I had with the characters was that they have this amazing world all around them, open to them, and they can only complain about how it doesn't make them instantly happy. They expect a magical cure for the unhappiness to appear out of nowhere. You mean you have to choose to be happy?? Overall, Alice was the one character I actually liked and had some compassion for, then of course she gets killed off.
Now, I'm not saying that there was nothing redeemable about this book, because there were aspects that I really did enjoy. There were moments when Grossman's descriptive and creative abilities really shone through. The only problem is, these moments were short-lived and the story goes back to the old track that wasn't so great. I really enjoyed the moments of magic which he described, and the way the characters did magic – I wish there was more time spent on that then time spent listening to whining. I also think the world of Fillory and Brakebills had a lot of potential. Despite those redeeming qualities, I don't think they're enough to convince me to spend the time required to continue on with this series. Overall, it's a somewhat average book. It's worth trying out, I suppose, if you're someone who enjoys fantasy – you never know, you might like it better than I did – but then again, you might just end up bored and anxious to get it over with. ( )

This book was Harry Potter without the sense of wonder, hope, and strength -- of course, Harry Potter was a child's book and The Magicians is not...

But I honestly wonder if you can call 'The Magicians' more realistic or not. Sure, it covesr the risks of magic, and a bunch of magical teenagers crammed together with hormones and booze and teenage angst better than Harry Potter did, and certainly, more realistically for a certain segment of the population. But after that it loses realism in exchange for rampant cynicism.

It comes to a certain suspension of disbelief. I can believe in the structure of other fantasy 'heroes' better than I can in The Magicians as opposed to seeing Quentin Coldwater cock everything up and ruin pretty much every good chance he had only to re-embrace everything that had shat on his life at the end of the book. While I am probably intrigued enough to pick up The Magician Kings -- which is a good sign for me -- the major thing holding me back is that Quentin is a fuck up who I cannot really believe is going to do anything but fuck up.

It's not a bad book. But it is a difficult book, if you don't want to essentially watch people ruin their lives with too little sense and not enough foresight. Which is fine if you enjoy that, but I see people do that enough in my daily life without having to add it to my reading. I'm honestly hoping he'll learn something from his experiences and the next book he'll grow a little, but... I don't know if I can hold too much hope there. ( )

An odd book that turned out to be completely different from what I expected going into it. The idea is interesting, though I can't say that the writing is particularly compelling or that the plot is very good at all. Still, I've heard they get better, so I'll have to see what happens with the next two. ( )

I really liked this despite the reaaaally long period of unnecessary description without action in the middle. Enough so that I'm grateful that I have something to move onto to read. Not sure why I'm in such a reading drought.

( )

God. I had issues with this one (male heroes who struggle with hubris and despair and make you want to smack them are the protagonists of about a third of all fantasy novels, from Earthsea to those Young Merlin books I used to read), but it also ate my brain and I couldn't put it down. The manic riffs on Harry Potter and Narnia carry you along at a breakneck pace, but the book doesn't rest too heavily on them; it's also hyperactively original and surprising.

The plot is bizarre, a total rollercoaster. Minds change and change back and change again. And then change back. It's complicated when you think it's going to be simple and straightforward when you've been trained to think that there's no way it could ever be that simple. Questions remain unanswered, depths are hinted at but remain unexplored. But it works, and it pulls together into something surprisingly unified.

It's hard to tell the difference sometimes between writing an obnoxious sexist teenage boy protagonist and actually being sexist, but I think The Magicians probably falls into the former category. Exception: I really don't love that the two gay male characters are a child rapist and a sex fiend whose kinks (we are told, impassively, in one of the author's didactic moments) will prevent him from ever having a stable or loving relationship. ( )

"The Magicians" is one part (adult, darker) Harry Potter , one part Narnia, mixed with a little dash of Terry Pratchett's weirdness. I found this to be a wholly entertaining novel, with an interesting magic system, layers and layers of worlds to explore, and a plot that (while sometimes scattered) kept me flying through this book in less than 2 days.

Here's my more detailed thoughts: (as per my new norm, no book summary here- just my opinions:) )

I loved the combination of magicians, fantasy worlds meshed with urban worlds, different systems of magic, and the academic setting that made up a large chunk of the novel. There are, again, SERIOUS Harry Potter and Narnia vibes here. If you enjoy either of those series, I would recommend this book- HOWEVER: be warned. The main villian in this book creeped me out so badly!! The first time he appears, I got chills and felt a Stephen-King-y ring of fear. There's some seriously dark jumbo going on in this world, but I loved how it was woven into the series with finesse and good timing.
There's also some really great plot twists and set ups in "The Magicians". Although some moments were bizarre and a little weird (the geese?? A lot of the "cave exploring" scenes near the end of the book??) there were some fantastic ones too! I'm not going to say specifics because of spoilers, but I was mainly impressed with a lot of the Chatwick/Fillory revelations.

My major problem with the book is that there are over 6 years (possibly 8? The timeline near the end was a tad confusing) within the 400 pages. There are LEAPS of time crossed over, oftentimes with a passage like "Soon it was December" when the previous page took place in August. I found the rapid passage of time to be quite jarring and irritating. In terms of the writing style, although very descriptive and well built, there are several loooong passages where Grossman tells the reader everything that is going on instead of showing the reader through a character's actions/words/etc.

Okay, let's talk about characters a moment:
You know how there's that joke about the Harry Potter series where no one's favorite character is Harry Potter, despite him being the main character? Yeah, same thing with Quentin Coldwater. Although I sympathized with him at times, overall, he was obnoxious, spoiled, and arrogant. Quentin is so irritating- he keeps getting a better and better life, but is always miserable. I get that's part of his arc and personal discovery, but still, sometimes I just wanted tor each into the pages and slap him.
He also treats a lot of people very poorly (Julia & Alice to name two). He also uses the word "retarded" as an insult to someone (page 324), and then describes a sexual figure as "slutty" (page 335). NOT COOL. Later, Quentin and a group of others are under attack, but Quentin apparently has time to wonder about the sex life of a couple of his friends (page 336). Bro, you are LITERALLY BEING ATTACKED. He really wasn't a spectacular main character; however, I did enjoy getting to see the other cast of character shine around him.
I seriously loved Eliot's and Julia's characters! (I think my knowledge of Julia's may be a bit biased from what I've seen of the TV adaption, but I like her determination!) Eliot seemed like one of the most real and likeable characters, and he's probably the one I'm most interested in seeing what happens to. Penny seems like a great, nerdy badass and I really hope we get to see more of him later in the trilogy!
Alice kept growing on me, but I feel like by the time I finally started to get to know her, she was put aside.
(Also- Richard just seems like a TOTALLY useless character?? He made me uncomfortable for some reason..)

All in all, I found "The Magicians" to be a gripping, fantastical, and dark urban fantasy entwined with classic fantasy tropes that combined to make a very memorable story of magic and growing up. I will definitely be picking up the next book in the trilogy! ( )

With a few minor differences, I would have sworn I was re-reading Lewis’ Narnia stories. Not a bad take on the Chronicles; I will continue the series. But it will take conscious effort not to continue comparing the two tales - to the detriment of the Magicians, unfortunately. ( )

Magic

DNF. I tried. I really did. (Full disclosure- I listened to the audio book which is not my preference) It was okay while they were in school, but after that, there was nothing holding my interest. I just couldn’t escape the fact that didn’t care even a little bit for any of the characters at all ( )

(2010)A high school student is picked to study in a magician's school that transforms him into a different person. What starts as semi-realistic tale of coming of age turns into a fantasy of extraordinary dimensions. A pretty good story that stretches credibilty but does entertain.(BookPage) In his third novel, Time magazine book critic Lev Grossman deftly and unabashedly walks the line between literary and genre fiction, creating a world of both fantasy and gritty psychological realism. Think J.K. Rowling meets C.S. Lewis meets Donna Tartt. At the book's start, high school senior Quentin Coldwater�brilliant, misunderstood and obsessed with a series of children's books set in a magical land¥is trying his hardest to escape his predictable Brooklyn adolescence. That is, until he is unexpectedly admitted to a prestigious college in upstate New York: Brakebills, the pre-eminent American institute for budding magicians. There, students slave away over potions and spells and are occasionally transformed into flocks of geese. For Quentin, this is eye-opening. His talents are nurtured, his limits pushed. But it's not all rainbows and broomsticks. There are also the tiny triumphs and trials of any college experience: competition, stress, sex, drugs, heartbreak and the looming uncertainty of graduation and the world beyond. Quentin and his friends move to Manhattan after finishing wizard school, where they live in a cramped apartment, get drunk, sleep with one another and wonder what good their prestigious magic education is actually doing them¥and why their childhood fantasies were so off-base. And it's here that Grossman's true cleverness comes into play. For, as much as The Magicians is an allegorical romp about ?growing up? in a Harry Potter world (though, admittedly, with a bit more R-rated language), it is also an astute piece of criticism of the way in which literature sets up expectations that no real¥or magical¥world can ever live up to. Eventually, Quentin learns that the land from his books does, in fact, exist. But, like much in life, it's not at all as he'd imagined it.Grossman's highly acclaimed previous novel, Codex, also asked readers to put aside preconceptions and give themselves over to a fictional world. It's a testament to the author's astounding creativity and delicate sensitivity that we are once again so willing to do so.

I enjoyed it initially, but now , 2/3 done, I just can't make myself care enough to continue reading it (listening actually) any more. Maybe I'll be able to in time. ( )

After watching the TV series, I thought I would give the first novel a try. The book was good (and the audiobook narrator did a thorough job), and I can see why it was as popular as it was, and why it was picked up for dramatization. But I'm just not sure if or when I'll pick up the second book. ( )

I picked this book up for a couple of reasons. The main reason was the narrator. The first time I heard Mark Bramhall was in “Doc,” an excellent book about the life of Doc Holliday. He was so great in that book, I needed to hear more. Also, at the same time, my husband was very into the series that was based on this book.

It was a long slog to get through the book. I found the characters to be rather flat and the book felt “loose” to me, like the pieces fit, but not very well. I am probably not going to continue to the next book and will instead search for another Mark Bramhall narration to enjoy. ( )

This is NOT NOT NOT Harry Potter for adults. Unless by "for adults" you mean "for cynics." It seemed to me like Lev Grossmean was less interested in the story and more interested in letting all of us know that life is hard, i.e. even if there are secret, fantastical lands and awesome magical abilities, life can still be shit. There is no epic struggle between good and evil driving this book; instead it's driven by the ennui of the main character, Quentin, a college student with severe, cliched who-am-I? existential depression.

But I liked the book because Mr. Grossman's point was well-taken by this particular reader. It's true that the idealism of youth is often crushed by reality. It's true that many of us long for fictional fantasy worlds to be real, like that would be some magic ticket to a purposeful life filled with adrenaline and wonder. It's kind of cool to read a book that tries to take apart everything that previous fantasy novels have built up.

But the biggest shortcoming of the book is, as I said, that Grossman seemed too overtly message-y to me. Much of this book is ripped off (borrowed?) from C.S. Lewis and J.K. Rowling, so it seems like he should've had some leftover brainpower to tighten the plot and make it all fit. Unfortunately, it didn't come together at the end at all, and it got a little boring. (Actually, here's my biggest disappointment: I thought it was great that there was no big evil nemesis-type character, and then one got thrown in at the end and I didn't think it made much sense.)

To sum up: I liked the thoughts it provoked, but the story does not earn the right to be likened to HP. ( )

Derivative of Rowling and C. S. Lewis, and I didn't really like the main character at all. ( )

I really liked this but this is def a series i need to read the actual book because it so long and i loose the train of the story. But it was such a cool world. I hope to read the next one soon! ( )

I really liked this but this is def a series i need to read the actual book because it so long and i loose the train of the story. But it was such a cool world. I hope to read the next one soon! ( )

Gah. This was one of those infuriating reads that gad me wondering at every turn why I was sticking with it. I'm still not sure why I finished it. Picture a cross between Harry Potter and Narnia with the main character consumed with self-loathing to the point where I'm sure his friends would have all been driven off in the real world.

Even more annoying was that it ends with a bang-up cliffhanger that almost sucked me in to the second book. Almost. ( )

I got this book because of the recommendation by Patrick Rothfuss, so considering I loved his novel (and his review of this was good), I thought I might like it as well. Not so much.

I understand paying homage to authors and stories that you enjoy, but not to this degree. I didn't find there to be anything unique about this book - teen angst, school for wizards, travelling to other worlds to be kings/queens. Yes, this novel was darker in some spots than the other stories, but that wasn't enough for me to forget the references.

The plot was also all over the place. There was no real story-arch that kept you wanting to see what happened next, and to glue the pieces together. The different periods of Q's life in the story were very separate, without much linking them together. Yes, he talks about Fillory a lot, but it would have been great to see him trying to get there throughout the novel, without it just suddenly happening 3/4 of the way through the book (and by a different character, at that). I didn't have any sense of what the 'big bad' was, and what the quest or adventure was.

I just found this book hard to like - the plot was too choppy, characters I didn't really care for, and way too derivative without a new spin to give it uniqueness. ( )