Category: 2.5 star

2.5 star, adult

Review: The Magicians by Lev Grossman

Fives @ Down The Rabbit Hole

The Magicians #1

A thrilling and original coming-of-age novel for adults about a young man practicing magic in the real world.

Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery.

He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. Something is missing, though. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. After graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. But the land of Quentin’s fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart.

At once psychologically piercing and magnificently absorbing, The Magicians boldly moves into uncharted literary territory, imagining magic as practiced by real people, with their capricious desires and volatile emotions. Lev Grossman creates an utterly original world in which good and evil aren’t black and white, love and sex aren’t simple or innocent, and power comes at a terrible price.

So close, yet so far. I would say that this story is a strong combination of The Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter. This was highly recommended to me by a friend, and while I can see why they enjoyed it, I just wish I enjoyed it more too. While the aforementioned series have more of a hopeful tone and a feel for adventure, The Magicians is much more of an “adult” and “realistic” version of those two worlds, where magic really doesn’t solve your problems, and where the world is much more sinister than just a villain like Lord Voldemort.

The Magicians revolves around our main character, Quentin, who is the classic brilliant but troubled student. He goes through 5 years of training at Hogwarts Brakebills to train as a magician before being thrust back into the adult “normal” world. Eventually he also discovers that his childhood books about crossing into Narnia Fillory are also real. I would say the first half of the book is like going through all of Hogwarts, and the second part is akin to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

I wanted to like this, but I think the biggest factor for me was that I hated Quentin. I just couldn’t get over what a terrible person he was. Incredibly selfish and hedonistic, he often leads the people around him to destruction, all the while whining about it. It supposedly stems from a bit of an inferiority complex and some clinically undiagnosed depression? But I honestly could not empathize at all with him. I guess that would be the biggest gripe for me, sure he was brilliant at learning and knew he was. But the kind of person he was…I just couldn’t stand for it, and therefore never rooted for him at all.

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2.5 star, adult

Review: Chemistry by Weike Wang

Fives @ Down The Rabbit Hole

At first glance, the quirky, overworked narrator [of this] novel seems to be on the cusp of a perfect life: she is studying for a prestigious PhD in chemistry that will make her Chinese parents proud (or at least satisfied), and her successful, supportive boyfriend has just proposed to her. But instead of feeling hopeful, she is wracked with ambivalence: the long demanding hours at the lab have created an exquisite pressure cooker, and she doesn’t know how to answer the marriage question. When is all becomes too much and her life plan veers off course, she finds herself on a new path of discoveries about everything she thought she knew.

I wish I could have given this a better rating – I really wish I liked it more. Overall, I didn’t have the best time reading it, but there were definitely redeemable elements that make me appreciate it. This short novel is also written in a very interesting way, which I found to be unique, but not altogether my preferred style.

Chemistry revolves around a nameless narrator, and we follow her trains of thought as she navigates her PhD in chemistry and possible upcoming nuptials. She has a Chinese background and the ever so prevalent Asian Parents. As she continues to endure more of the pressure from all angles, how will she survive, and what will happen to her?

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2.5 star, adult

Review: The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

Fives @ Down The Rabbit Hole
The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am.

She soon learns not only the identity of her birth parents, but also that she is the sole inheritor of their abandoned mansion on the banks of the Thames in London’s fashionable Chelsea neighborhood, worth millions. Everything in Libby’s life is about to change. But what she can’t possibly know is that others have been waiting for this day as well—and she is on a collision course to meet them.

Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk with reports of a baby crying. When they arrived, they found a healthy ten-month-old happily cooing in her crib in the bedroom. Downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. And the four other children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone.

The can’t-look-away story of three entangled families living in a house with the darkest of secrets.

I must say that I was quite disappointed with this thriller. Not that it was particularly badly written or anything, but for my usual expectations for this kind of story, it just fell short for me, personally. Having said that though, perhaps this could be considered a lighter type of thriller, and is maybe more suitable for readers new to thrillers, since I didn’t find it neither particularly chilling nor scary – again, all personal opinions of course.

This story follows a couple of POVs, the main one being Libby Jones, who finds out she is a the sole inheritor of a large estate. This estate has a twisted history though, and was left abandoned for a reason. Simultaneous to the story line of Libby investigating her mysterious past, another voice begins narrating the “chilling” events of the past leading up to the house being left to Libby.

The past involves the downfall of Libby’s birth parents (from riches to rags, if you will), and the following families who come to live with them to share the cost of the large house. However, not all is as it seems with these families who arrive, as the family slowly discovers. The twisting and perversion of this household is the “scary” thing that happens in the book, though I did not personally find it to be that convincing. While I could understand perhaps how it may have come about, I wasn’t particularly enamoured with the way things transpired, and as such, did not find the book too enjoyable. Or perhaps this is a sign that I have read too many thrillers and have certain expectations set for the level of drama that I want to see happen. Either way, unfortunately, this book was just not for me.

Overall Recommendations:

If you are looking for truly haunting and chilling thrillers, I would recommend looking elsewhere. The Family Upstairs follows the unveiling of the secrets of the past, of what happened at Libby’s birth home to cause it to be abandoned until she was of age. If you are new to thrillers, and may not want huge scares or major anxiety-inducing plots, this may be the book for you! I would say that it has many elements of a classic thriller, but they are all fairly tame – so if that is what you are looking for, this may be right up your alley.