The Magicians
A Novel
Readers rate it 3.4 (1.2K on Hardcover)
417 pages · Released Aug 11, 2009 · Penguin
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A note for parents
The Magicians is a deliberately dark, adult-oriented deconstruction of fantasy coming-of-age tropes, not a young adult novel despite its occasional categorization as such. The story follows a deeply flawed protagonist through depression, substance abuse, casual sexual encounters, and moral compromises in a magical setting. While the magic system is imaginative and the prose is literary, the book's pervasive focus on disillusionment, hedonism, and mature themes makes it appropriate only for older teens and adults with emotional maturity to engage with its cynical worldview.
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From the publisher
Lev Grossman’s new novel THE BRIGHT SWORD is out now! The New York Times bestselling novel about a young man practicing magic in the real world, now an original series on SYFY “The Magicians is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to a glass of weak tea. . . . Hogwarts was never like this.” —George R.R. Martin... Lev Grossman’s new novel THE BRIGHT SWORD is out now! The New York Times bestselling novel about a young man practicing magic in the real world, now an original series on SYFY “The Magicians is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to a glass of weak tea. . . . Hogwarts was never like this.” —George R.R. Martin “Sad, hilarious, beautiful, and essential to anyone who cares about modern fantasy.” —Joe Hill “A very knowing and wonderful take on the wizard school genre.” —John Green “The Magicians may just be the most subversive, gripping and enchanting fantasy novel I’ve read this century.” —Cory Doctorow “This gripping novel draws on the conventions of contemporary and classic fantasy novels in order to upend them . . . an unexpectedly moving coming-of-age story.” —The New Yorker “The best urban fantasy in years.” —A.V. Club Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A high school math genius, he’s secretly fascinated with a series of children’s fantasy novels set in a magical land called Fillory, and real life is disappointing by comparison. When Quentin is unexpectedly admitted to an elite, secret college of magic, it looks like his wildest dreams have come true. But his newfound powers lead him down a rabbit hole of hedonism and disillusionment, and ultimately to the dark secret behind the story of Fillory. The land of his childhood fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he ever could have imagined. . . . The prequel to the New York Times bestselling book The Magician King and the #1 bestseller The Magician's Land, The Magicians is one of the most daring and inventive works of literary fantasy in years. No one who has escaped into the worlds of Narnia and Harry Potter should miss this breathtaking return to the landscape of the imagination.
Shelved under
- Fiction
- Unloveable Characters
- Not Diverse Characters
- Strong Character Development
- Weak Character Development
- A mix driven
- Plot driven
- Diverse Characters
- Character driven
- Calibre Import
- series
- dark
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ISBN 9780670020553 · Penguin