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Have you ever said to yourself, hey, you know what would really improve Harry Potter or Narnia? If we let a group of irritating hipsters (like those thankfully eaten by the monster in Cloverfield) loose and recorded what happened. This book reads like a terrible piece of fan fiction. It could not be more derivative. The main character (if Harry Potter has charisma, this guy is the opposite of Harry Potter) gets to enroll at a prep school for magic. Yes, just like Hogwarts. Only duller. And featuring more guy on guy oral sex. While I had long suspected there was far too little sex at Hogwarts, given the teenagers living there and the curtains the beds could be enclosed by, let me tell you that Harry Potter books would not be improved by that sex being made explicit. Grossman even half-heartedly introduces a magical game and tournament for the game, making it clear in the text that he feels like he has to add something Quidditchy. It is clear he also does not give a crap about the game he invents. In the best ironic hipster tradition, many Harry Potter and Narnia references are made to show how cool the characters are in contrast to those fictional children's books. Yes, they are that smug. The hipsters grow up, leave Hog... sorry, Brakebills, and move to New York. There, they do nothing. Seriously. They do nothing. They drink. They have sex with each other. They whine. They mope. You will wish the bad guy from the first section had eaten them all. They are wealthy 20 somethings with no reason to live. It gets all Gossip Girl, but with terrible clothes and references to magic. Then the hipsters go to Narnia... sorry, Fillory. It's just like Narnia only really stupid. Because the hipsters are assholes, the first thing they do is go to a bar, drink too much beer, and harass a bear (one of the two clever lines in the whole book comes when the bear turns down a beer because he prefers Peach Schnapps). Because they are complete idiots, but think they're super smart, they do a bunch of incredibly stupid things, a whole lot of death ensues, and the author sets it up so you absolutely loathe the main character by the end of it all. You should read this book if you've ever wondered what Harry Potter would be like if Bret Easton Ellis had written it. And has anybody really ever wondered that? You should read this book if you're 22, a barista, live in an apartment your parents pay the rent on, and secretly think you would have gotten a lot more play if you'd gone to Hogwarts. You should read this book if you tell everyone reading fantasy is "lame" even though you devoured Narnia as a kid. The rest of us? Should not read this book.

2023-02-01 20:17