I am behind on blogging, but am still reading, so fear not, fearless readers.
I read the sequel to The Magicians, which is The Magician King, by Lev Grossman. I loved the Magicians (for reasons you can read in the previous post...), and The Magician King just blew the lid off the first book. It was Awesome Squared.
If you are not a dyed-in-the-wool [read: obsessed] fan of the Narnia Chronicles, maybe you won't love these books as much as I did. But I think they're better than just fan fiction; I think they're great, interesting, challenging, smart novels.
I've been trying to get my Dear Husband to read the first one, and I haven't yet formulated a convincing enough sales pitch, so if any of you have better ways of describing the awesome, please share.
I just read The Magicians and I didn't love it. But, I have a problem getting into novels where I really dislike the main character. Loved the Narnia Chronicles, but found The Magicians to be lackluster.
ReplyDeletePart of what I loved about the Magicians is that it is also a kind of dismal adolescent narrative. Does someone say it to him in that one, or maybe in the sequel? - that nothing will ever make Quentin happy. Anyway, I didn't mind not really being fond of Quentin, but I can definitely see how that would be off-putting.
DeleteI don't mind a nuanced main character, or a redeemed main character (like in The Kite Runner--tried that book 2x's before I got through it because the character was such a jerk at the beginning. Ended up loving it!) But the constant pointless angst in this one was too much. I've known people like this in real life--they tire me out, too! I have accepted this as one of my weaknesses as a reader. I know I'm in the minority, but I hated The Picture of Dorian Gray for the same reason.
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