If you will, for just one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is. Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there’s nothing else. It’s here, and you’d better decide to enjoy it or you’re going to be miserable wherever you go, for the rest of your life, forever.”“You can’t just decide to be happy.”“No, you can’t. But you can sure as hell decide to be miserable. Is that what you want? Do you want to be the asshole w

I know this is a thing us bibliophiles really shouldn't say EVER, but: I think the show is way better.Don't hurt me.When I started watching the SYFY version of The Magicians and actually really liked it, I made a quick mental note to go back and read this book first before I got too far into it. Because the book can usually be relied on to be better, I wanted to experience it in written format first. In this case, though, the book makes the story more boring, the characters downright insufferabl...

Terrifically horrible, a gonorrheal mess. Overly lauded by megastar writers because, as book critic for TIME, Grossman has been pivotal to an extent for some of their fame & $. Obvi.Alas, one reads it and knows right around page three hundred what a swamp the rest of the voyage will be, as superduper 2D Harry-Hermione-Ron-Luna-& co. avatars (at a discount) find themselves, I fuck with you NOT, in a fish out of water but lame trip to the land of Narnia. A generic one, as well. It really is just t...

*Originally reviewed in Sept. 2010*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 depress...

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 are certain th...

The story of a quasi-sociopathic high school cretin who mouth-breathes his way into an exclusive fantasy club of anhedonic wizards - replete with bad writing and worse story-telling. Enjoy.

(3.5? I might change it later) After deliberation I decided that the best way to describe this book is...A muggle born Draco Malfoy who grew up reading about Narnia, learns that magic is real and Narnia might be too...I think my main issue with his book was my own expectations. Too often people describe this book as Harry Potter books for grown ups and it's just not how I see it. The main character (all the characters actually!) is a depressed, "Iamverysmart" young adult who gets to go to a magi...

A definite 5* EDIT: Having now read the highest rated reviews of the book I'm amazed at the amount of vitriol on show. I've no idea what provoked it. I stand by my opinion and don't recognise the novel portrayed in many of these reviews.The Magicians immediately appealed to my writer bones. There a great many sharply observed and cuttingly sarcastic lines. There a good few beautiful ones. Along with the Victorian sensibilities of the Brakebills school of magic Lev Grossman adopts a witty almost

So I listened to this on Audio from the library and I laughed my arse off for most of the book! 😃Then I was like ....... I mean the audio was soooo good but I thought this was about something totally different!! And NO, I haven’t watched the show yet. It’s in my Netflix list but I haven’t gotten to it! I can see why people were talking about it being a cross between Harry Potter and Narnia and I wasn’t expecting that at all! Well, all I can say is I enjoyed it and plan on reading the rest of the...

Prepare yourselves for a rant-filled scathing review. So. Much. Hate. When I read the Martian I really never thought there would be a book I would hate more. But boy am I putting my foot in my mouth on that one! The Magicians was the winner by a landslide for The Most Obnoxious Book of the Year Award! Congratulations, Lev Grossman! Your book fucking sucks.This book was said to be the “adult version of Harry Potter.” Those are some big balls you have making that claim. Especially to someone lik...

Pretend Harry Potter was a bit of a narcissistic douchebag, and all of his friends were whiny a-holes who drank too much.Now pretend that they crammed 5 years worth of their Hogwarts adventures into one book. Except most of the adventures are fairly mundane, with a few exceptions sprinkled here and there.Then pretend at the very end of said book, they all took a trip to a warped version of Narnia...with mixed results.Now, if you're the type of reader who absolutely has to like the main character...

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 much people want

'You can't just decide to be happy.''No, you can't. But you can sure as hell decide to be miserable. Is that what you want?' The answer to this, as far as Quentin Coldwater is concerned, is a resounding 'YES!' At any stage of his life. He makes Holden Caulfield look like a bundle of sunshine. He makes Charlie Brown resemble an embodiment of optimism and positivity. Eeyore the Donkey is brimming with life force compared to our perpetually unhappy hero. '...You couldn't have everything. Or at

I passed on reading this book when it first came out because I was underwhelmed by the author's first book Codex. The excessively negative reviews about The Magicians peaked my interest. The complaints these reviewers had actually made me want to read the book. The positive reviews confirmed my growing suspicion that I should read this book. Although I am late to the party I must say I am glad that I overcame my initial reluctance because I loved this book. Unfortunately this book was marketed a...

What would you do if tomorrow your Hogwarts letter came in the mail? What about if your closet became a portal to Narnia?Suddenly there is a sharp line in the sand, dividing your life into two phases: Before Magic and After Magic.The Magicians analyzes this concept with the very deepest, darkest pits of human sin in mind. It is an exploration of realistic responses to unrealistic circumstances. "I got my heart's desire...and there my troubles began."This is not a book for people who prefer their...

This was in a special category for me: books whose positive reception make me question my membership in the human race. After finishing it I stared at the glowing blurbs on the back, looked up some positive reviews online, and thought, who are these people? What could they have been thinking? How could they possibly be so different from me? After that it took a few days of solid social interaction with good friends to convince me that I actually had something in common with my fellow humans -- t...

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)(UPDATE: After reading other reviews online, I realized that I could've made my point even more succinctly by simply saying the following: "Oh, wonderful -- another dour academe writes another fussy, joyless genre exercise, designed specifically for MFA circle-jerks who consider themselves 'above' such si...

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...

This was a difficult review to write. I was immediately drawn into Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, but then spent most of the remainder of the book wondering why I was reading it. The several parts of the book had a schizophrenic quality which didn’t always seem to have much to do with preceding sections or what came after. Still, it was well-written and I appreciated Grossman’s depiction of the magical world as something other than a place of awe and wonder. His rich, spoiled mages help create so...

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 different and distinct storie...