The Magicians
The Magiciansby Lev GrossmanEarlier this year, I read a review of The Magicians at Stephanie's Written Word (um, wait, was is really only in August that she posted that? I thought it was in the Spring! Wow.,.). I immediately went to my amazon wishlist and added the book only to cry out in frustration when I realized it was in hard cover. The story sounded so intriguing and tempting that I wanted to read it -*NOW!*- and yet I was trying my best to be a good little girl and wait for the paperback to come out.Obviously I suck at being good when it comes to books. In my defence - COUPON! So, you know, it's all ok.First things first, I am not disappointed that I bought this book when I did. It's the first book a while I read in only a handful of days - which is saying something since I have 5 or so books started and stopped because I just can't focus on any of them. Thanks to a stomach bug that I have been fighting since Monday I managed to read the book entirely since I was too nauseous to sleep.I truly enjoyed reading The Magicians even though it was nothing like I had thought it would be! When I read the summary about the story of Quentin Coldwater being admitted to an exclusive, secret college for magicians I had thought the book would be only about the school. I was wrong. We follow Quentin through his 5 years at Brakebills and then there's another part in the book when he's in the "real world" and then there's ANOTHER part of the book where it changes again and THEN there's a FOURTH part. I wasn't expecting that at all. I honestly thought the book would just contain the schooling. I was surprised and slightly sad when we came to graduation halfway through the book because I didn't know what to expect next.The story did not let me down. I had questions by the time Brakebills was done and happily they were answered in the other sections of the book. There was The Beast, whom I was sure couldn't have just been in one chapter and then forgotten about and I was constantly starting chapter after chapter with the question "Will The Beast be addressed this time?"I was curios about the notebook that Quentin had in his possession for a very brief moment at the start of the book and then lost. Surely that had to have meaning? You can't just bring something up and then drop it!I liked Quentin, I liked his friends, I loved Alice. The one thing that bothered me was that I didn't feel there was ample description of the characters. I couldn't tell what they really looked like from reading the book. Everything else in the book was fantastically described, though I felt like by the end of the book I didn't have a clue as to what Janet looked like. And only had a vague idea of Josh (fat), Elliot (well-dressed) and Penny (tattooed) in my mind. Heck, I don't even think I know what Quentin is supposed to look like!But that minor quibble aside, I was enthralled by the writing. Lev Grossman is eloquent, poetic and like a painter with his words. There were a few sentences that just leapt out at me while I was reading and I wished I was one of those people who read with sticky notes at her side because I wanted to note the pages so I could go back to them and write them in this post. If I wasn't so lazy and stomach-fluy I would run upstairs and get the book and flip through it to try and find them again. But, um, I'm not going to do that because I feel like crap so you'll just have to take my word for it. ;)This is one of those books with which I have a dilemma as to what genre I should tag it. It is most certainly fiction with fantasy elements in it. Really, it's a fiction novel ABOUT fantasy, so I am keeping it under fiction.I highly recommend this book to lovers of fiction. Also, you do not have to adore fantasy to read it. The fantasy world of Fillory is just one of the elements that make up the story. The rest are about life and growing up from teen to adult and learning how to love life and find happiness.I don't give "stars" to books on my blog, though I will say it got 4 stars from me on LibraryThing and Goodreads. I would have given 4.5 if I could. ;)