For our book binge, we read The Magicians. This trilogy, by Lev Grossman, is a New York Times bestseller and was met with rave reviews from all over the literary spectrum. George R. R. Martin, author of the Game of Thrones series, claimed that “The Magicians is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to a glass of weak tea.” So obviously, we were excited to read the books.
Unfortunately, we were met with disappointment after disappointment. Our first issue with this series stemmed from the main character, Quentin Coldwater. Within the first chapter, Quentin carries around an insatiable angst that, unfortunately, drives the entire plot. Our group found him whiny and unlikeable from the beginning, and because the first book of the series takes on the point-of-view of Quentin, we were unable to escape him. His misogynistic, narcissistic, frustrating personality made reading the story excruciating, and seriously dampened our spirits.
We also found that Grossman’s series paralleled ideas from many other popular fantasy books (i.e. Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, Percy Jackson, etc.) and, to us, it did not feel novel or original. It instead felt like a rehash of already successful novels, and to give it a twist the author tried to make it edgy by including sex, drugs, and profanities. We were unamused.
Our hatred of the story made it challenging for us to continue bingeing. That, partnered with each member’s different reading speed, caused some bumps in our group sessions. Although we could all connect over our mutual dislike, we found it challenging to talk about specific sections of the text because we were all in different places.
All in all, our group did not have the best time binge-reading our series, and we do not recommend this text at all. If you like angst, you will love this book. If not, find a different series. |
| The one and only Quentin Coldwater |
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