Magicians


For week 7, I read the Magicians by Lev Grossman. This book took me a little longer to get through and at first, I wasn't sure why. I think that the reason I kept putting this book off and taking forever to finish it was because the main character, Quentin Coldwater is ridiculously negative! It was so bad that I started to feel his negativity affecting me even after I had stopped reading! I could imagine reading this book as a young high schooler and probably not realizing just how negative he was but as a more mature reader I found it to be quite obnoxious. 

 "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 who went to Fillory and was miserable there? Even in Fillory? Because that’s who you are right now."

 This book felt super similar to Harry Potter just much more adult. The characters were more imperfect and less admirable they definitely felt more like real people and I admittedly enjoyed it less for that reason. When I go to read a fantasy book I want to be taken somewhere else. Somewhere that doesn't resemble the real world. With that said, these characters do go through quite a few moral and spiritual challenges. It's weird in this book Quentin has friends but it's not like how Harry had Hermoine and Ron. There's always this competitive energy because everyone at Brakebills is the best of the best. These kids are kind of snobby and are worried about who's the smartest or most talented. Theres challenges with drugs and sex as well. Overall, I think that this book wasn't for me but I could definitely see young adults in high school really enjoying it.

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