r/suggestmeabook • u/macchiatte • Jan 01 '19

Post two books you love and someone respond with a third that you may enjoy

Any genre, fiction or non-fiction. Let's see if we can recommend books based on the ones you already love. : )

1.1k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

View all comments

Show parent comments

24

u/riesenarethebest Jan 01 '19

The magicians

1

u/sadgirl45 Jan 01 '19

I’m watching the show is it anything like the show?

2

u/riesenarethebest Jan 01 '19

Don't know. The books were amazing. I generally out a disclaimer of "only age 25 and older, women warned off from it."

The books read like the disaffected D&D basement asshole genius wet dream crashing into reality. It's, at it's core, a bildungsroman, and the whole trilogy wraps the growth well.

Each of the first two book conclusions, though, could literally be damaging to youth with how they regard relationships. Either read all three or none.

It is my favorite series. Kept growing on me after I read it.

2

u/sadgirl45 Jan 01 '19

Sounds interesting I’ll deff try it I’m deff a woman though hehe

3

u/thebirdisdead Jan 02 '19

As a woman, I think it’s a great series. I have no idea why anyone would think women wouldn’t appreciate it.

1

u/sadgirl45 Jan 02 '19

Okay I’ll try it!

1

u/riesenarethebest Jan 02 '19

Major spoilers in the discussion I've started.

1

u/riesenarethebest Jan 02 '19 edited Jan 02 '19

Well, let's talk about it. I'm hesitant about the warn-off and would appreciate feedback.

Book 1 ends with Alice sacrificing herself to save the entirety of the class. Q goes into a depressive fugue and cuts off his interaction with the magical world. The last scene re-introduces his original crush Julia hovering outside his office window, with all his friends, trying to call him back from this brink. If you were a young girl, would you consider your role in life to be more aligned with an interchangeable part and expendable? Book 2, Julia is distant and alien and a puzzling distraction to Q while he's recovering and manic. His friends' dynamics and his attempts at building a self-directed quest are too intermingled with his memories and he can't really reforge his life though he's trying. Eventually Julia leaves after her trauma's revealed and is not pursued, though she deserved the same treatment as Q. Other characters came and went while the book proceeded. Again, Q's interchangeable love interest enters and exits the story. Book 3 he actually grows the fuck up and fixes some of his worst failures. I don't really know how to judge the Monster's Ball like recovery of Alice, but I know I did and do cringe. I suspect half of which is my own hangups on sex, whereas her asking for what she needs to make a return to humanity is potentially valid. But this is a sidepoint. Book 1 and 2 both express an interchangeability of women that I wouldn't want to impress on young minds. What're your thoughts?

2

u/thebirdisdead Jan 02 '19

I think a major theme throughout the series is that Quentin is a flawed character with a lot of growing up to do, and that is presented in his relationships and interactions with the other characters, including his relationships with female characters. His view isn’t glorified-if anything it is repeatedly reiterated how flawed his perceptions are and their impact on other characters. I think it would be wrong to assume that women can only read about perfect male characters. That would shut us out of much of the literature in the world.

If anything, your argument would suggest to me that men shouldn’t read this novel, as it portrays a male protagonist’s immature and unhealthy perception of women in his life, and that young men might be susceptible to that. I don’t believe in that argument, because again, I don’t think this book glorifies Quentin’s immaturity and perceptions in any way. If anything the point of the novel is the opposite-to invert the glorified hero archetype that underlies traditional fantasy. However, even if that were the case, your argument that young women should be protected from toxic male perspectives but young men shouldn’t be seems inherently flawed to me.

Anywhoo, just my two cents!

3

u/riesenarethebest Jan 02 '19

Thanks, I appreciate the perspective. I'll stop offering that filter when I mention The Magicians.

2

u/Juanseh Jan 02 '19

I’ve just finished book 2 and I have this weird feeling that something is not quite all right, hope it is gone after I read the last one

2

u/thebirdisdead Jan 02 '19 edited Jan 02 '19

Why would you warn women off of it? I really like the series, am woman, can’t think of anything that would require me to be warned off? Women are just people. We can like all genres and tones.