Spoiler-free
Some have described this book as a "Harry Potter for grown-ups" or "Hogwarts with sex and drugs" but I highly disagree. This book isn't about love and friendship with heros overcoming obstacles. This is a dark novel that leaves you feeling as numb as the main character. Quentin Coldwater is just your average highschooler with an above 4.0 gpa. He has two good friends and pines for his best friends girl. He feels miserable all the time so he escapes by doing magic card tricks and reading Fillory children's novels. Everything seems excruciatingly normal as he goes on an interview for Princeton until his life is turned upside down. Suddenly Quentin finds himself at Brakebills- a college for magicians. He finds out that magic is not all sparkly- its very hard work. After him and his friends graduate and move to New York, Quentin once again finds himself miserable and wondering what the point of life is as he drinks and parties the days away. The book takes an unexpected turn at this point when Quentin discovers that Fillory is real. He decides with his friends that it's time to go embark on a real adventure and this is where the motto "Be careful what you wish for- it just might come true" ties in.
My Rating:
This book is a strange read the first time around and i'm not sure if I liked it because I wasn't expecting it to leave me feeling so empty and quite shocked at times. However after going through it a second time I found that I really liked it. It's not your average fantasy novel but sometimes it is good to read something that doesn't always have a happy ending. I give it 4 out of 5 stars!
My Rating:
This book is a strange read the first time around and i'm not sure if I liked it because I wasn't expecting it to leave me feeling so empty and quite shocked at times. However after going through it a second time I found that I really liked it. It's not your average fantasy novel but sometimes it is good to read something that doesn't always have a happy ending. I give it 4 out of 5 stars!
~ Spoilers~
My Thoughts:
The first half of this book is all about Quentin's journey through Brakebills which I didn't find that interesting the first read through. It was also really weird when they were turned into geese and sent to antartica. I still have no idea what that was all about. I mean what kind of teacher turns their students into foxes and makes them have sex? The second half of the book was way more appealing to me. The whole thing with discovering the neitherlands was facinating. I mean how many other worlds could have been real? I would have loved to see that explored more, especially at the end when Josh was going to go look for middle earth. Also who expected that the beast was going to be Martin Chatwin? When he first appeared at Brakebills I didn't quite understand what was going on but it was explained later on. I'm still so shocked by the events that happened in the tomb. I was expecting them to go on this nice adventure to find the crown and become kings and queens. Instead I'm reading about Martin eating Penny's hands off and Alice becoming a niffin. In the end though I'm glad I read the book and am looking forward to reading the sequel which will hopefully explain some of the things that were missing from this story.Audiobook:
The audiobook was narrated by Mark Bramhall in an American accent. I think the audiobook was very well done and kept me sitting at the edge of my seat. His voice is very easy to listen to and he did a good job portraying the characters. I would definitely reccommend to listen.
Let me know your thoughts on book below!
