The Magicians

I am finding it difficult to wade through my feelings on this book. At the beginning I felt very relatable to Quentin as a character, his story had so many parallels to my own. I've dealt with depression and know how even in a privileged life you can feel like you are drowning in misery and waiting for the next bad thing to happen. I know how you can feel great at the beginning of something new only to have it sour and all the old weight of unhappiness slowly creeps into it. Above all I understood the want to exist somewhere else and if that would just happen, then I would be happy. What life and perhaps this book is a cautionary tale of, is that if you don't make an effort to be happy in the here and now, then no matter where you go from there - from new school, new job or magical realm - you'll never be happy. Although this is a very true statement, it is also a tough pill to swallow and can make for a very downtrodden and depressing story. As the book progresses our lead character Quentin's unhappiness follows him everywhere and leads to some destructive behaviour that is neither healthy nor wise and turns him into a very unlikable character. Perhaps this was the point, but I found myself getting frustrated with him and losing interest and an emotional connection to his story, leaving me a bit cold in the end. To top that off, the magical side to the story has some interesting things, but it's told in such an off hand way, that I felt it lost a lot of the wonder that you'd expect from a story about a magical school and magical realm. Overall I think there were some really good ideas at play, I'm just not sure if I cared for the execution. I'm hoping the next two books will improve on it, but that remains to be seen. I like that Grossmen is trying to address some issues - like depression - that is not often seen in much of the fantasy genre, but I guess I was hoping for a bit more of a positive spin on it, alongside the hard truths he's trying to express. That may be my personal take on it, so you'll have to read it to find out for yourself, I don't think it was a wasted read by any means, just be prepared for a very bleak story without much to offset it.