The Book of Love

This was so painful.

My spouse recommended it to me because of how much I loved “The Magicians.” There are comparisons, sure: problematic characters, modern day magic, sex... but man, The Book Of Love is easily the worst book I've read in years. 

I've heard of unreliable narrators before. I'd describe this book as an “unreliable author:” it is filled with characters who lie to one another about how magic works, or what magic requires of them, so we get dozens or hundreds of pages of red herrings that have nothing to do with the overall story.

This could be acceptable if we had more than a few characters who weren't so despicable that I wanted to simply skip the chapter when their name came up. I've enjoyed books with despicable characters before, but the thing that made these characters unbearable is high school drama. (If I have to hear about who got kissed during the kissing song one more time, I swear...)

I was told that the ending would be worth it. It's not. Not at all. The author simply makes up stakes in the last hundred pages that were never alluded to or foreshadowed, and then resolves them in a few pages.

This book is like a pretentious art school dropout who's high trying to describe a dream they had a few nights ago.