Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Voyage of the Dawn Treader, whoops, I mean Muntjac.

The Magician King (The Magicians, #2) by Lev Grossman

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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 […]

A third re-read for a book whose series I never thought I would continue.

The Magicians (The Magicians, #1) by Lev Grossman

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I have once again re-read this book. (I blame my Narnia re-read, and also I wanted to read it one last time before I started watching the TV show.) My past self would be devastated to learn I have gotten even more out of this read than I did the last. I still really dislike most of these characters, especially when we reach the middle section after they graduate from Brakebrills and become disaffected young adults. I never went through this stage of life and […]

Nothing happened and nothing changed

Codex by Lev Grossman

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Edward is a young, highly successful New York City investment banker about to embark on a new phase of his career in London. While on a two week vacation to get all of his affairs in order before moving to the other side of the pond, he is hired by one of his clients, a Duke and Duchess from England, for a little side work: organizing a private library and cataloging the books while keeping an eye out for one particular book that has been […]

These books are my Fillory and Further

The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman

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Quentin is ousted from Fillory and finds himself working for money in magic’s seedy underbelly. Thus begins the conclusion of The Magicians trilogy at the start of The Magician’s Land. What starts out as a job involving some not-so-petty theft quickly turns in to another quest to save Fillory. The book itself feels very much like a quest as the trilogy so far as described quests: kind of meandering at the beginning without a lot of direction until every snaps plainly into focus and all of […]

Earth and Fillory just keep getting darker

The Magician King by Lev Grossman

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The Magician King by Lev Grossman finds Quentin Coldwater with everything he could ever want: magic is still real, he is a powerful magician, he lives in a world that is built around and by magic, and he is a king. He could have everything that he could ever want, yet Quentin, eternal sadboy, is still not satisfied. He is less of a jerk but still just as morose. He’s still Quentin, just with a crown. In a desperate attempt for something different, Quentin sets […]

For a fantasy novel, these characters are a little too real

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

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The Magicians by Lev Grossman follows Quentin Coldwater through his education at Brakebills, a college for magic, and his post-graduation life. Quentin is a depressed, maladjusted jerk. He is not a wholly good person. No one at Brakebills or any magician seems to be a good person. Not Quentin’s best friend Alice and her family trauma that weighs her down to the point of never standing out, not Eliot and his ostentatious proclivity to exclude, not Janet and her razor-sharp tongue that inflicts lashes wherever […]



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