Now I’m remembering why this was only four stars. What was otherwise a clever play on Lewis’s Voyage of the Dawn Treader had the oomph taken out of its sails (heh) by a completely unnecessary SPOILERS rape scene at the end END SPOILERS. More on this in a bit.
Quentin is still having his identity crisis all over the place in this one, but he’s much less obnoxious about it here than in the first book. The real centerpiece of this book is Julia, as we get to see her as Queen of Fillory in the present day, where something is obviously wrong with her in addition to her being supremely powerful, and we also see flashbacks to her past, from the time she failed the exam at Brakebills to the present day. How she came to learn magic was much scarier and heart-rending than the way Quentin did. It provides a really nice contrast to the first book. Her problems are much more grounded and less egocentric than Quentin’s.
Where this book loses me is what happens to Julia in the last flashback. SPOILERS I am absolutely 100% positive that Grossman could have thought of another way for Reynard the Fox to take something from Julia while transferring her the power other than raping her. If the rape was in any way examined, or Julia was allowed to process her trauma from it, then I might feel differently, but it’s just a moment Grossman uses to shock the reader and we then skip straight to Julia’s ascension to demigod in the present timeline. It’s a cheat, and it feels wrong. This isn’t something I was able to articulate the first time I read the book END SPOILERS.
Aside from that one huge complaint, this is an assured book that takes a new spin on old fantasy tropes and manages to avoid the middle book dip.