09/12/2023
Yet another book that I just DO NOT understand the hype for. Me and a friend of mine read it for one of our “read a book in a day” hang days, and the scene was all set for success. But alas, success was not achieved. Believe me, I WANTED to like this book, I really really did. First of all the writing/writing style just seemed self indulgent to the detriment of the plot. I haven’t felt so stupid reading a book since I was in middle school. The amount of words that I had to look up was eye rolling and just added to the inaccessibility of the book. Secondly, I was promised dark academia, and what I got was 20 year olds fumbling around academically and sexually 😉. But not in a fun way, just in an aimless way. One could argue the fumbling was so random and came out of now where, it was like author just picked names out of a jar one day and was like “lets make them bang.. that’d be cool”. Don’t get me wrong, there were moments that were cool (specifically talking about the whole Callum/Parisa mental duel). There was a whole lot of blundering around without a real goal, then all of the sudden in the last 50 pages you get several big reveals, that if spaced out and given time to breath, I think would of helped with the lagging plot for the first 300 pages.
I’ve heard that since it got picked up by a publisher there were some edits that took place, so Im wondering if that helped much? But also not curious enough about it that I would read it again. HARD, HARD pass.
If you like the Magicians by Lev Grossman, you might like this? It gave me the same meandering pretentious plot line without a real direction that this did.
Sorry if you happen to love these books, but its a no for me dawg.
RATING: ⭐️
