Orangely

Review

Rating: 6

It’s hard to say that I liked this book; it was really mediocre at best. Through the whole novel I had a, “I’ve read this before,” thought. And for good reason: the book pulls from The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, and even a little from The Never Ending Story. All good plot lines, and Lev Grossman does a great job of weaving them together, but I still ended with a sense that maybe I should have gone back to the original stories instead of this new one.

Fillory – stand in for Narnia – is a set of books written by Plover, which has the Chatwin children going in and out of the fictional land. Quinten, the main character of The Magicians, is obsessed with them at the beginning.

He ends up going to a special magical school – a la Hogwarts – called Brakebills. You can fill in most any part of that story here.

The rest of the book contains a lot of Fillory, a lot of alcohol, and a fair amount of sex. This wasn’t a YA novel by any account; which I assumed when I started reading it. It shocked me when things got graphic, but Grossman did a good job of incorporating things without being creepy.

Most of the reviews held it in pretty high esteem, but I guess I really don’t enjoy fantasy novels. I loved Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia, but those were different, I believe. If you enjoy fantasy writing, you might really like this. (6/10)