Pages

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Book Review - The Magicians

(I've asked some teens from our TAB group to write posts or reviews if they want, so here is our first from Matylda! Opinions expressed belong solely to the writer of the review. In this case, the Richmond Library has this book, the Magicians, in the Adult fiction section. - Ms. Eileen)



Dear Fellow Readers,
The book reviews and recommendations you will see you may strongly agree or disagree with, but that’s okay. The world is meant to have opinions. Reading fanatics like myself should always keep an open mind, and who knows, may find something good or something to avoid.
The reason for that introductory paragraph is that I am about to give a book that many people like, a 1/5 star rating. This book is "The Magicians” by Lev Grossman. Not the whole trilogy, just the first book. Two words: Total. Rip-off. This book is basically jerk Harry Potter goes to college-Hogwarts in Narnia. Grossman ripped off our beloved Harry and Hermione – named Alice and Quentin, who were characters that I just came to hate. They had no motives, no pure intentions, and no struggle for something good or something better. They were just selfish teenagers. And most of the characters were, I might add, accustomed to get drunk, smoke, and take drugs. This author doesn’t seem to get the whole thing that when the reader falls in love with the characters and can relate to them, it’s a good book.
Another thing that drove me crazy was that this school, this college-Hogwarts called Brakebills, only accepted people who were geniuses. But the characters in this book never did things that were smart. They were told they were smart, and the author told you they were smart, but they never did anything to implicitly display their intelligence. In “Harry Potter”, Hermione is an actual genius. She figures everything out before everyone else, she always knows the answer in class, and she can get out of sticky situations with her quick and clever thinking. But if Quentin and Alice are smart, how come they never do anything to show us that? Though I know a lot of you might like “The Magicians”, my advice is to stay away from it at all costs.