I’m not a fan of breaking the genre as a trope in general. I have nothing against it and I don’t care to read books that are practically the same as the last ten I read. The problem I have is that often groundbreaking or subverting the genre is code for dark and edgy. The Magicians by Lev Grossman is that for many people. It’s a book that I could see someone who loved Harry Potter picking up now that they were older and finding a lot to like in it, but after a couple days of thinking about The Magicians, I’m still not entirely sure if I liked it or not.

The premise of the story is fairly familiar. A young man, this one college age, is accepted into a secret school that teaches magic. He learns said magic, makes friends and, eventually, even goes on an adventure.

This leads to my first issue with the book. I reached the halfway point and realized that I not only didn’t know who the antagonist of the book was, but if there even was one. There are a few major conflicts in the story, but they are, with a single exception, fairly mundane. You have relationship problems, negligent parents and school tests. The most interesting of these to me what after graduation when Quentin and his friends live aimlessly in New York. It feels like rich kids living off their family's wealth with no goals and no consequences. The problem is that it also feels like there are no goals and no consequences to anything they do.

The other aspect of this book and the one that brings it back at least some to me is Filiory. I don’t like to spoil things, but from practically the first page it is clear Filiory will play some part in the story. It is a thinly veiled Narnia with the characters going through a clock instead of a wardrobe in the books which Quintin is obsessed with. They end up there and discover that while it is what the books describe there is more to it. The adventures that seem exciting in a book are traumatic and dangerous when you’re in them. An interesting idea.

And there are a lot of interesting ideas here. I enjoyed much of the world building as Lev Grossman tried to think through the real world ramifications of things like turning into an animal. But while they are here, they are too mired in everything else to truly hold the book up for me.

There is one fatal flaw in The Magicians by Lev Grossman, at least for me. That is its worldview. The idea that everyone is miserable is not only a worldview I know to be untrue (I’m fairly happy most of the time), but also one that I don’t enjoy in fiction. I don’t read a book to be wallow in misery or to be told that I should be. I read to learn or to enjoy myself.

I don’t think I can recommend The Magicians by Lev Grossman. It’s a well-written book with a lot of potential and I can see why it would make a good TV show (which I haven’t seen), and I wouldn’t argue with someone that says it’s good, it’s just not for me. I didn’t connect enough with the characters to really care about their relationships; I didn’t need to know what would happen in his studies and even when the adventure it wasn’t that exciting. All that said, if someone has read the sequels and tells me it will change my mind I’m open to giving it another chance.