This is not a test by Courtney Summers

This is not a test is an exploration of what it takes to keep living when the end is not only in sight, but literally pounding on the doors. Not many would think to pair a suicidal and lonely teenager with a zombie apocalypse, but Summers not only links the two together effortlessly, she draws in all the difficulties of regular life. This book is more of an emotional survival story than it is a thriller.

Sloane Price, the main character, is at a loss. She isn’t afraid of the end; she longs for it. Her older sister Lily escaped their abusive father, leaving Sloane to suffer him alone. So when the end of the world comes flailing against her front door, Sloane isn’t scared of it. Somehow, though, she ends up with a group of teenagers locked in at her school. They lock the doors, barring themselves in with fresh water and supplies. And for a while, everything is as fine as it can be when zombies are waiting patiently outside your doors. But then, as you might expect, emotional ties start to form. Fingers are pointed. Betrayal, anger, lust, hatred and sickness invade the school, and it is only about to get worse.

Good paranormal fiction is hard to come by. The genre walks a fine line between too much fantasy and too little emotion. Oftentimes, the writing can be sloppy or cliched and over dramatic. The characters are often not well developed. There is usually a poorly formed love triangle, which you can’t particularly understand because none of its counterparts are particularly appealing. The characters have bright and shiny experiences, the gritty and difficult parts are glossed over, and you come away feeling uncertain and abruptly shut out of something that could have been real. But Summers has done a remarkably intricate job of creating down to earth, well rounded characters, and giving them life experiences even inside such an ambiguous reality. Not every moment is difficult, but even the best and nicest are explored, the sharp edges exposed. The entirety of the book feels real. It explores fundamental questions, yes, but specifically, it asks if the end justifes the means. Are the small victories worth the big sacrifices, in the end?

“I woke up and the last piece of my heart disappeared. I opened my eyes and I felt it go.” -Sloane Price

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

Everyone has a type; tomboys, girly girls, drama queens, bad boys, cool guys, techies. For the most part, though, at some point everyone discovers that saying that they have a “type” is a really limiting, and eventually heartbreaking, thing to do. Colin, the main character of An Abundance of Katherines, has a very, very specific type: girls named Katherine. He has dated 19 Katherines; each and every one has broken his heart, in their various ways. He knows every break up line in the book. And so, upon the loss of the 19th Katherine, Colin’s best friend Hassan drags him on a summer long road trip.

I’m not going to spoil the ending for you. The plot isn’t ridiculously complex. But, despite the simple plot, John Green has inserted a plethora of good advice and life lessons into this coming of age story about an anagramming, theorizing teen prodigy.

This book is quirky. Every other chapter holds something hilariously embarrassing or surprising. And, as with every good book, the sadness is there, plainly stated, but unrealized until you finally put it back on the shelf. There is real sadness in unrequited love. But as with all of John Green’s work, the story drags you in until the moment you finish it, and realize that you really understand what Colin is going through.

John Green is an expert in something that very few authors have accomplished; he is excellent at suspending emotion, at leaving you reading between the lines. Suspension of disbelief is one thing, but being so drawn into a story that you forget that the emotions are not your own is entirely another.

In life, everyone has their ordinary losses, their drama, their unrequited love. But we keep going. We are perpetually swimming in sadness, and we rarely, if ever, acknowledge it. Most of us don’t look around, and feel hopelessly sad about other people’s pain. We are so used to seeing heartbreak or loss. We respond to deep losses. It is the human condition to dwell on what is not ordinary. But we forget the things that everyone goes through. We forget the first heartbreak, and we tell those who we see going through it that everyone has to, and that we promise it will be alright in the end. But we forget what it feels like to be that person. We forget what it feels like to forget to come up for air. We forget what it feels like to be drowning, because we are all drowning in our own ways. Not everyone is heartbroken. But everyone hurts. Some of us are just better at remembering to breathe.

In An Abundance of Katherines, John Green explores the life of a person who experiences his life in knowledge. Every event is tied to a fact, every person has a mundane story that seems important to Colin. Colin remembers everything he reads. He could tell you exactly what happened to the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. He can tell you how to tame a wild hog (yes, wild). But when he gets his heart broken by the 19th Katherine, he wants a way to predict the next heartbreak. And after hundreds of tries, he realizes that, while any theorem can predict the past perfectly, if tweaked enough times, a theorem can never predict the future perfectly. You can only get a probability from the future. The future is never here. It hangs in front of you forever. Living your life in trying to predict the future is making the decision to be a little bit broken.

An Abundance of Katherines is witty, charming, clever, and surprisingly full of lessons that you can learn only by reading between the lines. It is not a book that will immediately change your life, although everything you do does change your life to an extent. But the lessons that you learn only later are the ones that apply to this book.

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Review: I have a confession to make. I have committed the ultimate literary faux pas; I judged a book by its cover. Now, let’s all be honest here. No one can say that they haven’t forgone a good book at least once because the cover (and or title) didn’t seem to have much depth. I for one have made this mistake several times, but I was never as wrong as I was about Anna and the French Kiss. Looking at the cover, I don’t see anything that really draws me in. The title is more cliched than popcorn and a movie. But. Having read the book, there couldn’t be a better picture, or a more all encompassing title. This book is the culmination of my three favorite things: uncomfortable, but oh-so relatable situations, big words, and the very difficult to articulate sensation of becoming-yourself-away-from-everything-you-know that is teenagerhood. Anna and the French Kiss is filled with callipygian boys, and completely absent of meretricious language. It is full to the brim of euphemisms, and references to fabulous literature (you want an example? Like Water for Chocolate), and it’s bursting with a really tangible sense of emotion that is almost too easy to connect with. It draws parallels to cliches, and manages to be genuine without trying to hard. This is the book of the year. This is the literary Breakfast Club. If you have to read one book this year that will make you laugh, make you smile, and make you wish it would never end, choose this one.

Summary:

All Anna wants is the perfect senior year, in her hometown, Atlanta, Georgia, with the perfect boyfriend (Toph), the hilarious best friend (Bridget), the adorable little brother (Seany), and a fabulous cinema blog (Femme Film Freak). But Anna’s father has other plans; he’s sending her to the School Of America in Paris. Yes, that’s right. He’s sending her to SOAP. Upon arriving, Anna discovers that there are some pros to her situation. And the biggest ones name is Etienne St. Clair. An English-French-American hybrid who has messy hair, a short stature, and the kind of crooked smile that goes weak at the knees. St. Clair, of course, has his own pros and cons. The pros: he’s St. Clair. The cons: he has a major girlfriend.

Anna discovers that Paris is the film capitol of the world, and her blog soars. She loves English, hates French, ironically, and learns how to order her own food. She thrives; and she wishes for St. Clair every time she visits the magical Point Zero, where everything in Paris comes together.

Anna and St. Clair find themselves alone at the school for several days, with only the faculty to keep an eye on them. And St. Clair, whose life is falling apart, spends a little more time with Anna than he should. He sleeps in her room, they spend all day together. But when everyone returns, including St. Clairs girlfriend Ellie, Anna and St. Clair start to drift apart, and Anna starts to feel furious at him for leading her on. At Christmas break, Anna discovers that Bridget has started dating Toph, despite knowing that Anna liked him. A lot. Anna is furious at Bridget, and her Christmas break is ruined. Except for one thing. St. Clair, who is miserable, stuck with his father while his mother is in radiation therapy, calls constantly. They email all the time. They become each others home.

On Anna’s birthday, however, when “the gang” goes out to celebrate, and Anna and St. Clair have to much to drink, awkward things happen on the dance floor. Anna and St. Clair grow apart. For a long time. But eventually, Anna realizes that she can put everything back together again. And she will move mountains trying to.

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Review: Many people fear that should something bad happen to our planet, we would lose our sense of humanity and equality. James Dashner explores what desperation can do to our society, and how important it is to have a sense of  our future, and who, as humans, we are.

Science fiction is usually not my genre, but this book contains a compelling struggle and also an almost involuntary exploration of how inherent personality is. Many people would say that without our memories we are nothing, but in this novel, there is an interesting exploration of how ingrained the sense of self is.

This is a fantastic and entertaining story.

Summary:

Thomas wakes up in an elevator. When the elevator arrives at his destination, he steps out into The Glade, an enclosed living area containing forty other teenage boys. It is explained to him that they all woke up in the elevator, at first several, then only one per month as time passed. They get shipments of food, clothes, shoes, and whatever they need. Every day, the giant gate that keeps the Glade separate from whatever is outside. Each day, the runners run the maze outside the gates, trying to find a way out. But get stuck in the maze at night, and you soon have bigger problems than just being alone. Because you’re not alone. The Grievers, giant globs of goo and metal spikes will chase you with a vengeance. If they catch you, you’ll be injected with something that causes you to remember everything that happened to you before you came to the maze. Because upon your arrival, all you know is your own name. As if this weren’t enough, the day after Thomas arrives, the Gladers are faced with something they’ve never had to deal with before. A girl. A girl who triggers The End. And if they don’t find their way out of the maze, there won’t be a reason to worry anymore. Because each night, the Grievers will kill one of them.

Thomas and his friends must find a way to escape, and discover how to get out of the maze. Oh. And to find out who they are, and why they were chosen.

Leap Day by Wendy Mass

Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November. All the rest have thirty one, though February’s underdone with twenty-eight — now hold the line, leap day makes it twenty nine.

Leap Day is a day full of common misconceptions. Though everyone knows about leap day, a surprisingly small amount of people actually know what leap day is- the reason for it or the origin.

A commonly (wrongly) held belief is that of the idea that there are 365 days in a year. While this is true to some extent, the fact is that there are 365 and a quarter days in a year, which is where leap day comes in every four years, to round it off so that we don’t wind up having Christmas in the summer.

The origin of leap day is somewhat of a mystery to many people, although for it to be a mystery there might have to be a curiosity in the first place. There are several myths about leap day, the most common one being that it was a day given to women so that they could propose to men instead of the other way around. The men could not turn the women down unless they offered them a silk gown and a kiss in consolation.

Josie Taylor knows for a fact how special it is to be born on Leap Day; she’s reminded every four years by the Domino’s pizza guy. But this year is extra special; it’s her SIXTEENTH birthday, and along with  a drivers licence, Josie might just get a change in perspective.

Summary:

Josie Taylor’s fourth birthday is finally here. Well, technically, it’s her sixteenth. Regardless, neither her parents nor her friends are going to let this day slide by unannounced.

Over the course of Josie’s day, we see her point of view, opinions, and feelings about others. They way they touch her, and the way she touches them. But you also see the way she touches others; after each chapter is an excerpt of each person Josie comes in contact with; how she has changed them.

Wendy Mass has created a masterpiece. This is human interaction at its finest; it was well worth the read, and good for a laugh.

Peace, Love and Baby Ducks- Lauren Myracle

Review: For the most part, sisterhood is a wonderful journey. And yet, as I think most sisters would agree, there are some big bumps along the way. There are general conflicts, of course; who ruined whose t-shirt, and why does she get to go and I can’t- these are, primarily, elemental pieces of the greater puzzle that is sisterhood. There are deeper pieces too, though, some pieces that can’t really be explained to someone who doesn’t have a sister. Peace, Love & Baby Ducks explores the strong bond between sisters, and all of the underlying tension and conflict that exists between them. It examines the realm that exists between them, both that fierce protection that an older sister feels for a younger one, and the deep desire to be loved and understood which is so elemental in the existence of a younger sister, and yet which is thankfully not fragile, for try as they might, an older sister can rarely anticipate just what might set the younger one off; and vice versa. Lauren Myracle has done a truly remarkable job in showing both the connections of sisterhood and the difficulties of being a teenager. She has illustrated and put into words a lot of subtle elements that are hard to get at.

*this review is dedicated to my little sister.

‘When our hair is white, we’ll still have our sister love.’- Shanghai Girls.

Summary:

Fifteen year old Carly is a rebel. But she’s a rebel with a sidekick and a back-up plan; she has her sister Anna.

Carly and Anna are as different as black and white, night and day. And, just as night and day, they exist on different planes of the world. Carly lives in her down to earth real world, where people suffer, there is pain, and stereotypes are as brutal as knives and guns, and being different is a badge of honor. Anna lives in a world of perfection and pearls, where a white miniskirt printed with pink whales is “adorable”, and everyone should try to fit in; even if that means bleaching one’s teeth.

And also like night and day, Carly and Anna have their moments of converging, as the sun rises and the world reconnects, if only for a second. Carly is there for Anna 24/7. That’s what sisters are for, after all. They are there, somewhere, even when night and day diverge.

When Carly returns from summer camp, she discovers that her sister Anna has blossomed. And by blossomed, she means grown up. And by grown up, she means, Anna is hot. Hotter than Carly; hot enough that, even as a freshman, she’s going to attract a lot of attention. But Carly and Anna love each other, so despite that teeny twinge of jealousy, Carly manages to push it aside for her little “ducky-wucky”- a nickname that Anna despises.

A few days before school starts, Carly and Anna get their hair cut. Anna, conforming to the style of their school, Holy Redeemer, goes simple. Carly, however, decides to try a radical style with a new stylist; and it does not turn out as planned.

Going back to school, Carly and Anna discover that they are both going to have plenty of conflicts; Carly, dealing with first, comments about her hair, and second, comments about how “hot” her sister is, and Anna, discovering that Carly and Carly’s friend Peyton weren’t lying; Anna really will get hit on.

Carly crushes on a new boy, drops Peyton, and moves on to  a new friend; Vonzelle, the only African American girl at school. Peyton and Anna percieve Carly’s friendship with Vonzelle as part of Carly’s quest to break the Holy Redeemer mold, and Carly starts to pressure Anna to break stereotypes and rank with Holy Redeemer.

Carly’s parents leave town, leaving Carly and Anna with a “babysitter”, their creepy housekeeper Tracy. Peyton asks Carly if they can have a small get together at her house. Carly and Anna discover a box of chicks  on their doorstep. They make them a temporary home in the bathtub, and ask Tracy to drive them to a store to buy duck food and supplies. Tracy drops off Carly and Vonzelle; Anna has stayed home. Carly and Vonzelle arrive home to discover that a raging party is going on at their house. Once Carly manages to kick everyone out, she discovers that Anna has gone missing. She goes out to look for Anna, and eventually, she finds her. They hug, and apologize profusely. Then they go home and clean up the party.

This book is wrought with lessons and experiences, boy crushes and whales.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Review: When I first picked up this book, I was afraid that it would make me cry. Books about teenage cancer patients with terminal cancer rarely avoid the route of sadness and despair. And this book will make you cry, but not because of an overwhelming despair and hopelessness; this book subscribes more to the idea that your life is how your life is; you fight until you can’t fight anymore, and then you hope.

When books are written from the point of view of a cancer patient, they often take on the tone which is expected of them: hopelessness. Full of loss and sacrifice, with little joy or good news, rarely a witty or cleverly worded comment. The new element that John Green has brought to the table is that of humor and witticism, which is not to say that loss and sacrifice are not huge elements of this story. His main character, Hazel, has terminal thyroid cancer. She carries a tank of oxygen, and wears a cannula due to the fact that she has metoids in her lungs. But, as with all unlikely heroines, Hazel has a special quality that is just as unusual and breathtaking as her heroism; Hazel has words. She reads and reads, and in all that reading, picks up so many words that John Green’s novel is overflowing with them. As much as a person may say, “well, of course a book has words”, the sad fact is, that much like children playing with wooden blocks to make easy words like “cat” and “dog”, many authors neglect words that are not building blocks. This isn’t to say that the word “beautiful” isn’t a perfectly good and useful word, because it is. What it lacks, however, is the quality of strange familiarity. We hear, over the course of our lives, many, many words, and yet, the average person is said to know 12000 to 20000 words, and yet, in the English language, there are 1013913. So, due to this sobering statistic, many people may never hear the word sobriquet: a nickname, sometimes assumed, usually given by another. Or the word Hamartia: a fatal flaw. Both of these are words that I learned from John Green; and they are both words I plan to start using more frequently.

John Green has woven together a literary masterpiece. His characters are interesting, and perfectly flawed; his words link together like chain mail; not to be torn apart or dissected.

Summary:

Hazel has had terminal thyroid cancer since she was thirteen. Thus far, it has been held back by Phalanxifor, but in the winter of Hazel’s seventeenth year, she becomes depressed. Her mother, a deeply caring and concerned person, forces her to go back to cancer support group, which meets in the basement of an Episcopal church, right in the middle of the cross, where the literal heart of Jesus Christ would have been. Hazel, not being a religious, or a deeply hopeful person, does not enjoy support group. Until the day she goes back, and meets a new “survivor”, named Augustus Waters, who announces he lost a leg due to osteosarcoma, but is fine now, and really only here for his friend Isaac, who is about to lose his second eye to cancer.

Augustus approaches Hazel after the meeting. He asks her to watch a movie at his house. Hazel safely assumes that Augustus is not a serial killer, and agrees to go.

What Hazel hadn’t expected was to fall in love with Augustus. Not quickly, and not in a sappy, sick way, but slowly. And once Hazel has fallen in love with Augustus, she shares her favorite book with him; An Imperial Affliction. He immediately gives her the Wish that he got from the Wish genies in exchange for his leg, and Hazel and Augustus (and Hazel’s mother, of course) set off to find the author, Peter Van Houten, and drag the end of the book out of him, because the book ends in the middle of a sentence. They discover, however, that Peter Van Houten is miserable, a drunk, and that he really doesn’t know how the story ends.

And, while I will not end this review mid-sentence, I will not tell you anymore. This book is so heart-wrenchingly beautiful and fantastic that is would be positively sacrilege to do so. You will love this book. Guaranteed. Whether you do or do not love superfluous vocabulary, your heart will beat a little faster as you reach the end of this story.

The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler

Review: The Basic Eight is a rare book in that the author makes no attempt to make the main character particularly likeable. The character, Flannery Culp, has her sympathetic moments, but she is a bit of an anomaly in terms of main characters, due to the fact that she is not written to be a likeable character. More to the point, she is not written to be a repugnant character either. She is neither overly off putting or particularly nice; she is very much herself. She could, in fact, be her own adjective: Flannery: (fla-ne-ree) being oneself without trying to impress or pull the wool over another’s eyes.

As I was reading the Basic Eight, it occurred to me that if I were to meet Flannery Culp in my school or my town, she would not very likely be someone I enjoyed spending all of my time with. I delighted in this discovery, due to the fact that in most books, primarily those written for teenagers and young adults, the main character, or a character who deeply influences the main character is very likeable: ex. very likeable character: Peeta from The Hunger Games, conversely, a very difficult character could be Sammy from Before I Fall.

Flannery Culp, however, is very much her own entity. She is totally herself, all the time, which is part of the reason why the book was so enjoyable. Written in a journal-style prose, Flannery’s story, told as she edits her diary after the Basic Eight have done what they did, Flannery’s story is complicated, jumbled, messy, mixed up, confusing, and delightful all at once.

I recommend it highly; furthermore I recommend you do not read the summary, as I think you should read the book.

Summary:

High school is a difficult time for anyone; and for Flannery Culp, who spent the summer before senior year in Italy, writing love letters to a semi-indifferent, mostly negligent of his feelings young boy named Adam, Flannery finds that she hates senior year just as much as the years before it, or so the book advertises. I would merely invoke the idea that Flannery has a pretty fabulous time for at least the first part of the book; her friends are funny, she has dinner parties, and she is witty and clever. I will concede that things go downhill for Flannery not so very far into the book. Flannery writes her “journal” from the standpoint of jail, several months into the future. She is editing it, interjecting articles from famous psychologists, and conversations from the “Winnie Moprah” show, all of which discuss how Flannery, and her 7 friend, the eight of whom make up the Basic Eight, are dangerous and have killed Flannery’s “lover” Adam State, who, to be quite honest, probably did not deserve to be killed, though Flannery was stood up by Adam; she was jilted by Adam, I think you could say. The dark humor that Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler’s pen name for the Series of Unfortunate Events) ran rampant, and I found myself laughing at things that were most certainly not funny, in a literal sense.

I recommend this book very highly, but with a few asides: this is somewhat a psychological comedic-drama. Flannery is very irrational, and there is a lot of substance abuse and sexuality in the book. I myself did not find said elements particularly overwhelming, but I will say that there was a lot of it. I read several other reviews, a few of which stated that the book was “disturbing” due to the insight into the irrationality of the minds of my generation; however, I would say that it is not an accurate display of reactions, though Flannery’s feelings are certainly valid.

The Future Of Us – Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

Review: While this book got high ratings, The Future Of Us has undergone major criticisms from readers and reviewers alike. The common complaint has been that it does not touch enough on love. It doesn’t make you want the main characters to fall in love and get together. And yes, that’s true. But I think that those people are missing the point. It’s not a sappy romance. It’s real. My view on the book is this: it isn’t a LOVE STORY, it’s a love story. And the sad fact is, that the LOVE STORIES we love to hate are the very love stories that have driven so many people to dislike this book.

You could read this to grandma or little sis without much trouble. (teen drinking, very minor sexual elements, language)We can moan on and on again about how a shirtless pirate rescuing a maiden in disgrace is cliche and boring, but those are the love stories we like to hear, because everyone wants to believe it’s that easy. But this story is real; the romance is accurate, and true to emotion, and it portrays a very accurate view of how foolish and self-centered Facebook would look, if the nineties could see it. In fact, that is how we ourselves would see Facebook, if we took a step back.

Both of the writers have written fantastic books in the past, and I think that the concept is well developed and interesting. But Jay Asher wrote Thirteen Reasons Why, which topped the bestseller list, inspired remarkable and much-needed controversy, and remained in hardcover far more than a year after the customary paperback release date. Carolyn Mackler’s The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things was on 2006′s “most challenged books” list, was banned,  won the Michael L. Printz award for honor books, and is an ALA best book for young adults.

The credentials of the authors alone recommend the book. Authors don’t write without a purpose. They write insightfully, having put great detail and thought behind their words, and I think The Future Of Us has a lot to offer.

I enjoyed The Future Of Us. I would give it to my sister, my friends, my aunt, my mother, my grandmother, my brother, nephew, uncle or son. The material was not controversial, and there were almost no elements that could be considered disturbing.

Summary:

Emma and Josh have been next door neighbors for a long time. So when Emma gets a computer, Josh brings her an AOL (America Online CD-ROM) that his family wasn’t going to use.

Emma logs on and hooks up the internet. It’s 1996, but somehow, when she gets on the internet, she’s connected to her Facebook page… 15 years later. Emma thinks, at first, that the page is a practical joke from some not-so-funny guy trying to freak Emma out about her (not-so-perfect) future. But she soon discovers that this is not a joke, and even the slightest change in her daily life affects the one she lives in the future.

Emma tells Josh and they discover that Josh has a Facebook too: he winds up married to the hottest girl in school, Sydney Mills.

The Josh and Emma of the past would have teamed together to change Emma’s future and stay Josh’s, but Josh is in love with Emma. And Emma knows it, but isn’t sure how she feels about Josh, except afraid of losing him. So while Josh makes semi-frantic attempts to “meet” Sydney, Emma panics about her future, trying to change it, and Josh panics about Emma’s changes affecting his future.

Emma and Josh, and their friends Tyson and Kellan go to a bonfire on the beach, where Josh hangs out with Sydney. Emma leaves early and goes home. She hears Josh arriving home, and, realizing that she misses him, does nothing. But Kellan comes roaring up a minute later with Tyson, and plans of kidnapping Emma and Josh for a fun night out on the town, where Emma and Josh discover that they may have feelings for each other after all.

The Magicians – Lev Grossman

Review: The Magicians is Harry Potter and Narnia rolled into one. But it’s more than a children’s book; it’s like Harry Potter for adults. It’s Narnia; but it’s a Narnia where the creatures are ruled by an evil force so much worse than a witch, where things don’t always work out, and there is no overwhelming good to work towards. Depression, violence, drugs, and alcohol are common

Appropriate scale

elements, and death is an all too common tragedy. Lev Grossman is audacious; I can think of very few authors who are willing to take an overwhelmingly popular idea (wizard school) and make a darker, deeper, more intense, genuine version that rings true for people everywhere. In The Magicians, magic is hard. And dangerous; make a wrong move, use magic too advanced for you, ask too much of yourself, or not enough, and you will fail, or become a creature you never imagined in your worst nightmares. Lev Grossman has created a world that very few people would choose. It’s a difficult life. It’s not a choice, and failure is inevitable. What you want to happen doesn’t happen. Lev Grossman is brave. He follows his instincts, and he writes what he wants to write, not what people want to hear.

I would give this book to a teenager, to my aunt, my parents. I wouldn’t give this book to a younger child. My grandma could handle it, but I doubt that she would like it.  However, my young, hip aunt is the one who recommended it to me!

Summary:

The Magicians is comprised of three books.

In book one, Quentin finds out that he has magical powers. He arrives at a interview with a Princeton alumni to find him dead. The pretty young nurse gives him an envelope that leads him into a small, undeveloped garden in New York. As he walks further, he realizes that it’s not possible for him to have walked this far in the middle of New York. He notices that the sun has changed, that it’s in the wrong position in the sky. And he walks into Brakebills. He is the last of his future classmates to arrive, the last to take the exam.

Quentin passes the exam, and enters his first year at Brakebills. It’s difficult. Magic involves the movement of one’s hands in specific positions. One wrong move, and you can become a creature of dark magic. You can separate yourself from you, become a niffin.

Not too long after the first year starts, Quentin, along with two other students, Alice and Penny, are invited to move up to second year. They start spending time together, studying, and Quentin becomes close friends with Alice. Penny, however, pulls farther and farther away.

Alice and Quentin pass. Penny doesn’t.

Alice and Quentin test again to discover what their specialty is. Alice comes up with Physical Magic. Quentin’s results are inconclusive, and the professors decide to put him in with the Physical Kids.

Alice and Quentin get along well with the other Physical Kids; Elliot, Janet and Josh.

In their fourth year, the students are brought up to the roof and transformed into geese. They fly for months, until they reach Brakebills South, another Brakebills, but set this time at the South Pole. Once at Brakebills South, an intensely difficult study program begins. They are not allowed to speak, to interact with others.

At the end of the program, they are offered an opportunity: to make a journey to the middle of the South Pole. To go five hundred miles, using only magic to feed and keep themselves warm. Quentin takes it, making it all the way to the South Pole.

By the time they graduate, Alice and Quentin have fallen deeply in love.

In the second book, life gets rough. The non-magical world is difficult to live in, and relationships become more difficult too, though the Physical Kids have managed to continue to live together, even after leaving Brakebills.

One night, they throw a party. Alice comes late, and by the time she leaves, Quentin, Janet, and Elliot are all very drunk. Quentin and Janet have sex, and when they wake up the next morning, Penny, from school, has arrived in their living room, talking about magic buttons he has discovered that take him to another world. No one believes him, of course, but once Quentin tries it, he figures out where they are: Fillory, (the Brakebills version of the Harry Potter wizard world) and decides that it is their destiny to go to Fillory.

Upon arriving there, however, they discover that the Fillory of the books they all loved so much as a child is nonexistent, and Fillory is now ruled by an unnamed and evil “Beast”.

In the final battle against the beast, Quentin gets left behind in Fillory.

Can he escape Fillory and make it back to the world that is filled with memories of the girl he loves, or will he flounder in Fillory for the rest of his days?