The Magicians

I actually only ranked this book four stars out of five initially (I’m a harsh marker), but I couldn’t get it out of my head. Imagine a cross between the Narnia series and the Harry Potter series, but all the main characters are Edmund/Malfoy types. People sometimes do heroic things, but there are no heroes here.

It’s all much more muddy. This is a fantasy novel set in the real world, at least to start with, but there are also heavy elements of horror, and I think that’s why it put barbs into my brain – the things that happen… show more.

The Magicians is what happens when a kid who’s obsessed with a series like The Chronicles of Narnia grows up, is accepted into a magical university, and discovers along the way that the fantasy world he so loved reading about is real…but not quite what he imagined. This novel, the first in a trilogy, offers a more jaded look at some of the beloved aspects of children’s fantasy and how they might play out with young adults discovering themselves and seeking purpose.

It’s like Harry Potter but rated R. Meant for readers (like me) who are secretly desperate to believe in magic but need to be convinced. I followed Quentin, a brilliant but sullen teenager into Brakebills an elite school of magic and I never wanted to leave, even when things got hairy-which believe me they did. A must for anyone who loved the Narnia books. It’s also a sneaky recommendation because it’s the first of a trilogy, but I bet you’ll be hooked and devour the other two—if they don’t devour you first. 

This book very definitely takes a step from YA towards A. The protagonist, Quentin, is a high school student and the story contains sex, swearing, smoking, and mental health issues, and yet... It also has a letter swept by the wind into the bushes of a neglected, winter New York park and when Quentin pushes through to grab it he is now standing on the vast, sunny grounds of a Hogwartsesque college. What’s not to love? Obviously, my desire for there to be more to life than we can see made me fall in love with this book.