The Magicians by Lev Grossman

Everything I read about this novel made it sound great, like Harry Potter for adults. I had been really excited to read it, but unfortunately I found myself disappointed. This book is nothing like an adult version of Harry Potter, unless by adult you mean that it's more depressing than fun and not imaginative. Despite being a book about magicians, it never once felt magical. Instead, most of the book was dark, dull and frequently downright boring.

The Magicians is the story of Quentin Coldwater, a high school senior obsessed with tales of Fillory, a fictional land that is part of a book series that is the equivalent of the Chronicles of Narnia. On a rainy day in Brooklyn Quentin finds himself transported to a magician's academy in upstate New York where he spends five years learning magic before being thrust out into the real world.

The first two-thirds of the book describes Quentin's school curriculum, mostly a lot of unconnected stories that quickly skim through five years of schooling. Occasionally there is a small tidbit that becomes more important to the overall storyline, which doesn't really even pick up until the final 150 or so pages of the novel.

After graduation Quentin and his friends discover Fillory is real, and travel there using a magical button that first takes them to an in-between dimension filled with countless fountains you must jump into to travel between worlds. Sound familiar? Maybe because you read something very similiar in Lewis' The Magician's Nephew. And that isn't the only parallel to Lewis' works. This entire novel is basically an amalgam of every classic fantasy novel you've ever read.

I also had trouble with this book because no matter how hard I tried, I did not like the main character at all. I couldn't find a single redeeming characteristic in him, which may have been intentional, given the theme of the novel, but it bothered me a lot.

The overall theme of this novel isn't a happy one; in fact it's pretty much the opposite. It's all about learning that sometimes our fantasies don't always turn out the way we would like them to, and we should be happy with the life we've been given; don't keep looking for a better life than the one you have. The darknes of this story and the harshness of reality, even a magical reality, really does make a great concept for a novel. Unfortunately, the way this story was told didn't take advantage of that concept.

While I'm sure The Magicians have some fans, I'm definitely not one of them. While I refused to give up reading it, I never truly got into the novel. The entire time I pictured the author as a child who spent his entire life searching for Narnia and is still disappointed he never found it. Or, maybe it's the opposite. Maybe he found out too soon that Narnia didn't exist after all, like learning too soon that Santa Claus isn't real.

I think this is the first novel I've read this year that I can honestly say I didn't really enjoy at all. As I said before, I think what the writer was trying to say with this novel could have been interesting. I just think he leaned a little too heavily on already published works and didn't establish enough of his own story. It's always disappointing when a novel fails to live up to it's potential.

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

Enzo is a dog. He is also the narrator of this engrossing tale, which depicts his life with his owner, Denny. His story is full of tragedy and triumph; many ups and downs and is at times amusing and tragic.

This has been on my reading list for a while and I just finally had time read it. It's extremely well-written and very powerful. The story opens on the eve of Enzo's life, so you already know where it's going to end, but that doesn't lessen the impact of the story or of Enzo's strength. The personality of the dog was so wonderfully written. This is probably one of the better books I've read this year.

Sea Glass by Maria V. Snyder

Sea Glass is the second book in Snyder's Glass series, which chronicles the adventures of Opal Cowan, a character first introduced in Magic Study, the second of the Study series.

In this novel Opal must deal with the consequences of her actions in the first novel, Storm Glass, and must deal with a lot of opposition from most of the magical community. There's also the problem that her newly discovered ability to steal any magician's magic terrifies most of the magical community.

I can't say too much without giving away events that take place in Storm Glass, but this was a very well-written sequel, as I expected. I have loved every book Snyder has written so far and I already can't wait until the next one. Her books are entertaining and engaging, and once I cannot put them down. It took me less than 24 hours to finish reading this one.

If you have not read any of Snyder's books I highly recommend them.

Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey

I had no idea what to expect from this novel, but I thought the premise sounded interesting so I gave it a shot and I wasn't disappointed.

Jimmy Stark (known simply as Stark) is a magician. Eleven years ago a group of fellow magicians made a deal that sent Stark to hell in exchange for more power. Now Stark has found a way back to Earth determined to get revenge. However, he learns that he has found himself in the middle of something much deeper and much darker than he realized.

I only recommend this book to someone interested in dark fantasy, who wouldn't be offended by irreverent depictions of heaven and hell, and the beings associated with each demesne. Stark makes for an extremely flawed, but interesting protagonist.

The ending of this novel set it up perfectly to become a series focusing on Stark's character. So it will be interesting to see if Kadrey does indeed turn this into a series.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling

This was the first time in 2 years that I've read this book. After my marathon 24-hour reading of it the day it was released, I couldn't bring myself to pick the book up. It was such a tragic, but terrific ending (in my opinion) to the Harry Potter series. I just couldn't bring myself to read it again, as if re-reading it would truly make it the end of the series.

One thing I love about these books is that every time I re-read them I notice some little detail I never noticed the first time around. For example, in The Order of the Phoenix, when Aunt Petunia says she heard that "awful boy" telling Lily about Dementors, I always assumed she meant James, it wasn't until I book 7 the second time around that I realized she was talking about Snape. I don't know how I missed that the first time, but I did.

The Deathly Hallows was definitely just as good, if not better the second time around. I'm looking forward to seeing the movie version. As I was reading I was trying to determine where the story was going to be split; my theory is that the first movie will end when Ron deserts Harry and Hermione, as that is near the middle of the book. It'll be interesting to see where it really is divided.

Taking Woodstock by Elliot Tiber

This book was recommended in response to my review of The Road to Woodstock, and then I realized Jeffrey Dean Morgan would be in the movie version (directed by Ang Lee) so I decided I would have to read it, since I always have to read the book before seeing the movie.

It was really interesting reading this book shortly after having read Michael Lang's story of Woodstock. There were several times where I'm pretty sure the two accounts contradict eachother, which given the nature of Woodstock is entirely possible. I also had the impression, after reading Lang's book, that Tiber hadn't been too bright. Naturally Tiber's own book paints him in an entirely different light. I think that discrepency may be due to the fact that Tiber is an artist, not a businessman, therefore not quite as savvy when it comes to business decisions, but still intelligent.

Another thing I found interesting was that it felt like Tiber seemed to almost worship Lang. He kept referring to him as his miracle man, who pulled him up out of the rut he had been in, and brought Woodstock to his town, which kind of changed the course of his life. His description and portrayal of Lang was almost god-like.

This book wasn't just about Woodstock though. It also dealt heavily with Tiber's own struggle with his sexuality, growing up as a gay man in the 50s and 60s with Jewish parents.

Overall this book was definitely more fast-paced and engaging than Lang's book, but I think I'm still a bigger fan of Lang's simply because it dealt more with Woodstock, which I was more interested in. While Tiber's story is interesting, it didn't bring up Woodstock until about halfway through. But it did give an interesting, different perspective to the events of that summer.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson

I picked up a free hardcover of this around Christmas and never got around to reading it, but now that the second novel by Larsson is out I decided it was about time.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the story of a journalist who is convicted of libel, then offered a position by a wealthy businessman to investigate the 40-year-old disappearance of his favorite niece. At first I thought I wouldn't like this book, it starts out with a lot of information about financial journalism and economic information that is way above my head, but once it started to focus on the main mystery the novel got a lot more interesting.

One of the things I found interesting about this book is the fact that it's hard to completely like the main character. Most of the time he isn't bad, but once in a while he displays characteristics that result in serious personalities flaws. There is also a slight difference in the narrative stucture that I can't quite put my finger on, something about the transition between characters I think, that I attribute to the fact that the novel was originally written in Swedish and only recently translated into English.

Overall I think this book was an interesting read, and I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series, The Girl Who Played With Fire, which I believe focuses more on the main female character than the male.