Nick Lowry Lowry itibaren Tayvan, 台東縣達仁鄉台坂村 itibaren Tayvan, 台東縣達仁鄉台坂村

I loved reading this and actually thought it was much stronger than The Magicians. Grossman has really hit his stride here. Julia's story, told in alternating chapters throughout, is fascinating and inventive, and her striving and angst is less frustrating and annoying, less merely adolescent, than Quentin's felt in the first book. The final scenes in this novel are unforgettable--one terrifying and sickening, all fascinatingly vivid in their imaginative detail--and Grossman also has some great moments of humor throughout (e.g., after the talking sloth tells Quentin that sloths remain hanging in their trees after death "[o]ften well into the process of decomposition" and he replies, "I did not know that," Grossman writes, "It wasn't an easy ball to throw back."). I look forward eagerly to more adventures in this series.

I suppose so much has been written about Lolita that there's not really anything I could add to it. Let me just say, then, that I enjoyed it thoroughly. Nabokov was a master of the English language, probably because he was learning it as a second language and was therefore able to better appreciate it's nuances and boldness. It's a novel, yes, but the amount of care that he put into every line makes it a work of art.