Review: The Magicians

The Magicians by Lev Grossman reaches several dimensions (pun intended.)

In a nutshell, it's a Harry Potter crossed with The Chronicles of Narnia. Only, it's called Fillory. Not Narnia. The main character, Quentin Coldwater is a huge fan of the Fillory series. Through magic and stuff, he becomes a certified magician in four years. He and his friends move to New York City. One of his friends discovers a button that can transport people from their current universe to the Fillory world. Where they kill Martin Chatwick and become king. 

The Chatwicks in a nutshell are like the Pevensie children. So each one goes to the magical land. Martin, the eldest goes and never returns. We find out that the Fillory series is real and that Martin gave up his humanity to stay in Fillory forever. His sister, Jane, alters time in an effort to stop her evil brother, Martin. To kill Martin, Quentin's girlfriend, Alice sacrifices herself. She becomes a "blue spirit of magical energy", called a niffin. By killing Martin, Quentin and his friends become Kings and Queens. The story isn't that simple, but in a nutshell, that is what happens. 

It's easy to understand Quentin's motivations. He can be selfish and shallow at times. His girlfriend dies yet there is no true mourning described in the book. He screws up more than once, yet it doesn't prevent him from making more mistakes. Quentin's too impulsive. The one thing that's bad about the book is the inside flap summary gave away too much of the story. The story was draggy with the plot at times. Then other parts of the book have extreme jumps. I was considering putting the book down after the third page, but I am glad that I continued. The writing is excellent. The narrator voice inside my head was able to read without a break of flow despite the odd spacing of time in the story line.

I look forward to reading the next two books in the trilogy. 

Rate: 8/10