Double Feature Part 2: The Magician King

A while back, I reviewed The Magicians, which it turned out had a sequel coming out (The Magician King). I was immediately excited because I realized it when I was double checking some facts about the book while I was reviewing it (aka, I saw on wikipedia). I enjoyed The Magicians, up until the end, so the fact that "the end" wasn't actually "THE END" made me very excited to read this new book...which I literally just finished about an hour ago.

Truth be told, Lev Grossman did it to me again. I hate reading books when I don't know there's going to be more. Once again, the ending left me hanging, which means a sequel, which angers me in many ways. I dislike having hanging endings. Even Harry Potter, which you knew was going to have a sequel, would leave off each book in a way that made you hunger for the next one, but there was still a somewhat clear "end"--he was back with his Aunt and Uncle for the summer, and he would be bored stiff and want to go back to Hogwarts, just like the rest of us. Grossman is not so good at endings, I'm realizing. Without spoiling anything, essentially what happens at the end is the textbook "third act crash", setting up the next book and essentially making everyone rage face that the next book won't be out for another couple of years most likely.

That being said, the rest of the book had me hooked the entire time. That's why I was so mad about the ending, I felt like there wasn't a payoff. Besides that, Grossman writes with a humor I can truly appreciate, with personality that most editors make you throw out the window. There are many references to Hogwarts, hacking, hobbits...if you're a nerd and you wanted a freakin' letter to a magical school, this book knows how to play to your feelings and experience, while also saying naughty words.

SPOILERS AHEAD IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE MAGICIANS

This is just so I can have some space and no one accidentally reads spoilers. Carry on. 

The book picks up the plot two years after the ending of the first, with Quentin, Julia, Janet and Eliot all living as royalty in the once-thought fictional land of Fillory. Quentin has become restless and wants to go on a quest, which you just know means bad news. Soon enough, he gets one (or what turns out to be a beginning of one), and takes Julia along with him, feeling a need to help her with her life. Readers of the first book will remember that Julia learned magic on her own, instead of attending a magic school like Quentin did, but not a lot was revealed about how she went about doing that in The Magicians. Well, it gets revealed in this book, that's for sure. Roughly every other chapter switches over to Julia's perspective, and takes you through how she learned magic, and eventually why she's acting so weird. The pay-off in this area is spectacular, though the resolution seemed a little too perfect to me. The journey was what I enjoyed.

That seems to be how I feel pretty consistently when it comes to reading books by Lev Grossman--good god I love the journey, but I hate his endings to no end. Most of it stems from sequel rage, but in addition it feels almost abrupt when he ends his books. I would suggest reading this book, but I would wait two years so that perhaps the final (if it is only a trilogy) book is out, and you can continue on reading, without feeling a need to rip your hair out.