Book 12 - Depressed Manhattan Teen Learns Motherfucking Magic

Title: The Magicians Author: Lev Grossman Genre: Mopey badass high fantasy

Okay so I told myself I would read 100 new books this year and, 11 books in, I'm already breaking my promise to myself... IN MY DEFENSE (against myself?), I haven't read it in a while and wanted to read the other two books in the series (The Magician King and The Magician's Land), and I hatehatehate feeling like I'm just missing something, so there. That's why I did it. And fuck it, I'm counting the book towards my grand total. I make da rules!

And now on to the review!

This book seems to always be compared to Harry Potter, for the fact that it's about some friends who discover a magic world co-existing with their own regular hum-drum life, go to magic school, and go adventuring. There's also a strong Narnia element in it, with some travelling to magical lands through clunky old furniture.

Some people are, ah, not pleased by this:

"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" (D.Pow, Goodreads).

Hahahaha. Yes, okay, I can see how a person might think that. Quentin, the protagonist, is not a bumbling-yet-heroic Harry Potter, and his friends are not perfect talent/personality accents that allow for their constant success in the face of adversity. No, Quentin is a flawed, depressed, intelligent teenager from modern New York who gets invoked into the world of magic and basically discovers that nothing external will ever make him happy.

Hmmm, am I selling this yet?

Other reviews aside, I reaaaally like this book. The premise is super relatable for a book nerd; imagine your favourite universe suddenly proves itself to not be completely imaginary, but unlike classic narratives in magical lands, everything doesn't quite work out perfectly - surprise, fairyland is as messy and inconsistent as real life!

Magic itself is super cool, too. It isn't a fanciful collection of spells in pseudo-latin, cast by waving around a wand. Magic is gruelling and finicky and can have truly disastrous consequences. Throughout the book, it's obvious that Grossman has thought out the theory and mechanics behind magic. Preesh, Lev, preesh.

There is one glaring downside that has become even more apparent in my second reading of this book: everyone important and/or beautiful is skinny and white. Quentin is tall, lanky, and white. Alice is tiny, and white. Eliot is slim, and white. Julia? Slender - and white. The few people who aren't skinny but still have larger parts in the story include rotund Josh and Fogg, who are never truly taken seriously - and are, you guessed it, white.

Rating: 🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑/5