Book review: The Magician Trilogy by Lev Grossman
Some spoilers ahead, though I try to avoid major plot points.
I recently read The Magicians series by Lev Grossman. Having read Harry Potter for the first time about a year ago and loved them, I was excited to read a more adult take on the wizard-school premise. I was captivated by the first book, and could hardly put it down. I also enjoyed the second and third books, though I think the quality of the books decreases through the series, as it is hard to match how superb the first book is.
The book series is about Quentin Coldwater, a young man who finds himself at a college of magic called Breakbills. Learning magic is grueling work, and requires mastery of intricate hand movements and precisely reciting incantations from a menagerie of languages. This kind of work is right up Quentin’s alley, because, as a “gifted kid”, he not only is brilliant but also has a perverse sort of love for the grind. During his time in college, Quentin befriends several classmates which remain major characters throughout the rest of the series: Alice, Penny, Eliot, Janet, and Josh. The first book spans several years, covering Quentin’s entire enrollment at Breakbills.
Quentin is an unusual protagonist. He’s very smart and focused/conscientious on his studies, but is also moody and depressed. He’s never satisfied with his mundane life, even when he gets to wizard school. Instead of focusing on the present, he’s always looking ahead to when things will change and the meaningful era of his life will finally begin. When he goes to the magical land of Fillory, he gets upset because even though its exactly what he’s been fantasizing about for his whole life, it doesn’t automatically fix his problems or make him happy. He is also a bit of a dick to his friends, though he doesn’t realize it for most of the book. He doesn’t have malevolent intentions, nor is he passively aggressive, but he is very passive and self-centered. There’s a line in the first book which demonstrates this where Quentin realizes with a shock that his classmates aren’t just academic competition but are also real people with their own dreams and desires. Part of what makes the book so interesting is that while it is written in the third person, it’s from Quentin’s subjective perspective, so Quentin is never presented as being in the wrong. As the story progresses and Quentin grows in character, the narration also subtly changes to reflect how Quentin’s outlook on the world changes. The first book is excellent, and I don’t have any critiques of it.
The second book, the Magician King, is when most of Quentin’s character development takes place. Quentin takes much more responsibility for his life, and also ends up saving the existence of magic along the way. A major aspect of the second book is about Quentin’s high school friend, Julia, and how she learned magic outside of the formal Breakbills system. Julia is a pretty interesting character and serves as a nice foil to Quentin. Once Julia finds her magical friend group, unlike Quentin, she becomes pretty happy and is appreciative of the people in her life. Her story is also pretty tragic, but I won’t spoil it. I really enjoyed the second book and thought both the characters and plot were great, though my only critique would be that the pacing is slow at times.
The third book was the weakest one in the series, in my opinion. The biggest problem was that the plot was a mess. The whole thing with Ember and Umber was poorly paced; it seemed to happen all of a sudden at the end of the book. Also, the connection with the first half of the book, the bird and the heist, wasn’t very satisfying. This is in stark contrast to the first book, which was very well paced and did a good job of establishing connections to later plot points and foreshadowing.
The characters in the third book were decent but weren’t quite good enough to make up for the poor plot in my opinion. Quentin had some further character development, mostly dealing with the repercussions of what happens at the end of the second book and learning to be truly self-reliant. While it was good development for his character, it was more of a cherry on top because his character arc felt like it was already mostly completed. That would have been fine if the other characters had made up for it, but the other major character for most of the book was Plum. I found Plum to be pretty boring. Plum’s whole arc was about finally coming to accept who she is instead of running away from her family ties, but it fell flat. It felt like the entire purpose of Plum’s character in the third book was to show that Quentin has outgrown being such a horndog and that a major female character can exist without Quentin having sex with them.
Eliot and Janet, however, were more interesting and were the highlights of the book. Eliot really grows up, putting aside his hedonism and truly living up to the title of High King of Fillory. However, I felt that a large portion of Eliot’s development in the third book occurred in the flashbacks to the events of the second book, so he didn’t seem to contribute much to the plot of the third book itself. Janet becomes pretty badass and seems to have more of a sense of humor, which was a nice development because her character was a bit of a two-dimensional bitch before. Josh and Poppy were wholesome, but unfortunately they didn’t seem to contribute much to the plot.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book series. Not only was the plot engaging, but Quentin’s character arc was compelling and was good inspiration for me to do some self reflection about ways that I might be too passive or self-centered in my own life. All three are definitely worth reading, and I’ll probably re-read the first two books at some point.
Book One, The Magicians: 5/5
Book Two, The Magician King: 4.5/5
Book Three, The Magician’s Land: 3/5
