Harry Potter for Grown-Ups?: "The Magicians"

Hey there everyone! Time for another book review, and in light of the recent premiere of the last Harry Potter movie, I thought I'd do a review on a book that was often hailed as a grown-up's Harry Potter book: Lev Grossman's The Magicians.

I was incredibly torn when it came to reading this book. I loved it in parts, in others it felt very lukewarm. The basic storyline isn't exactly original: boy feels out of place in his world, world of magic appears and takes him in, magical hijinks ensue. In this case, the main character is Quentin Plover, who loves a series of magical books that take place in a land called Fillory. Despite being children's books, Quentin can't let them go, which makes him somewhat of an outcast in the real world. Luckily for him, magic turns out to be real and he is invited to attend Brakebills, a Hogwarts-esque school of magic. He graduates, and more things happen to him.


Think it's weird that I had to have that last sentence that vague? That's because it's part of my issue with this book: it skips around. There's a plot...? But it keeps changing, with little to no reason. It seemed like a few chapters were built around developing the rules and a tournament regarding a wizarding sport that is some weird mix of chess and capture the flag, and suddenly their team is in the championships...and then it's a new chapter, everything that just happened was dropped completely. A huge chunk of the book was about Quentin's time at Brakebills...and then suddenly he's graduated and the book takes a completely different turn. It feels like this book was supposed to be more than one book, and for some reason it was forced to become just one. It truly feels random parts were cut out, and the reader is forced to switch gears and adjust to something new.

One thing I did enjoy about this book was the "grown-up" aspect of it. Quentin, upon finding out he's been accepted into Brakebills, says something along the lines of "I'm going to be a motherfucking magician!" I can tell you with all honesty, that is EXACTLY what I'd say if I'd been accepted into a school of magic. This book also has sex in it, which is one thing that Harry Potter seemed to be missing. It's not something I missed when I was reading the HP books, but looking back on it, there was a lot of drama in those books, despite there being no sex at all. The Magicians has a fairly appropriate amount of sex given the age-group of the main characters, and then does a fairly good job of the resulting complications that come from having it.

The thread of main plot that seems to appear and disappear throughout the books is ultimately very well thought out, my biggest issue came with a lot of what surrounded it. Even the ending felt like it had suddenly changed gears, and not in a good way. Apparently there's supposed to be a sequel coming out this year, so I'll see how that is and if that remedies my issues with this book, but I'm not really sure if it can. My verdict is to borrow this book if you have the time and you have nothing else to read. It has it's moments, with a great villain and a fairly genius main plot, but Grossman seemed to get in his own way when it came to developing the world that Quentin lives in, and I hope he remedies it in his sequel. This has great potential...he just needs to take some Adderall or something when he writes so he can make sure everything he says actually goes somewhere, rather than just be somewhat distracting.