Book 10: The Art of Fielding

So, The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach was originally started as my ninth book, but I had some issues while reading it, and thus it became my tenth book.

Author Links: Goodreads

Buy it Now: Amazon / Barnes and Noble








Book Summary:
For the first time, I am at a loss on how to summarize a book. Other than saying that it's a book that's sort of about baseball but sort of not, I've got nothing. So in order to give you something here, I'm just going to type the description from the cover. Here you go:

At Westish College, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big league until a routine throw goes disastrously off course. In the aftermath of his error, the fates of five people are upended. Henry's fight against self-doubt threatens to ruin his future. College president Guert Affenlight, a longtime bachelor, has fallen unexpectedly and helplessly in love. Owen Dunne, Henry's gay roommate and teammate, becomes caught up in a dangerous affair. Mike Schwartz, the Harpooners' team captain and Henry's best friend, realizes he has guided Henry's career at the expense of his own. And Pella Affenlight, Guert's daughter, returns to Westish after escaping an ill-fated marriage, determined to start a new life. As the season counts down to its climactic final game, these five are forced to confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets.

Book Review: 
Okay...now...where to start? It's not that I necessarily disliked this book, it's just that I didn't really like it much either. I'm kind of neutral about it, maybe slightly more to the side of dislike but not much. I thought it was decently written, and the characters were pretty well rounded, even if at times unbelievable. I also thought the book was going to have more to do with baseball than it did. Baseball is used basically just as a plot device to move the story along. There wasn't a lot that I really liked about this book. It started off well; actually I was really into it for the first fifty pages, but then it went downhill.

Here's the thing, I'm not a huge fan of books that have multiple main characters and jump around between the characters from chapter to chapter. I get confused on the timeline of events when this happens. So when after reading five straight chapters of this book being about Henry and it randomly jumped to Affenlight in chapter six, I was perplexed. I didn't realize that was coming and was really confused for the next couple chapters. After I got the hang of it, though, it wasn't so bad.

The main issues I have with this book deal the believability of the characters' actions, like, for instance, when Henry and Pella sleep together. I'm not saying that this stuff doesn't happen, but they basically just slept together because they were in a room alone at the same time, who cares if Mike gets hurt in the process. It just didn't fit with their characters personalities to me. Also, Owen sort of drove me crazy. I felt like he was written, purposefully, as this super stereotypical gay male, and it wasn't believable for me. The other thing I didn't like was that there were plot lines introduced in the book that were never wrapped up. This is not the type of book you write a sequel for, so I suppose the author just didn't think people would wonder whether Mike got over his pain killer addiction.

All in all, I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either. I would probably never recommend it to someone. As far as swearing and sexual references go, both are present and abundant. There are multiple sex scenes (not overly graphic, but graphic enough), both hetero- and homosexual, along with a magnitude of swear words including multiple f-bombs.

My Rating: 4/10

Book 3: The Magician King

For book three I went with The Magician King by Lev Grossman.

Author Links: Website / Blog / Twitter / Goodreads

Buy it now: Amazon / Barnes and Noble







Before I go into a book summary, let me first say that this is the second book in a series. The first, The Magicians, I read last year. I will try not to spoil too much about The Magicians here, but be forewarned that there may be spoilers to that book as I write my summary and review for The Magician King.

Book Summary:
This book picks up after The Magicians, Quentin Coldwater is now royalty in Fillory along
Julia Wicker, his crush from high school, and Eliot Waugh and Janet Pluchinsky, his friends from Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy. As the story starts, Quentin has become bored with his life as king of Fillory and is searching for some adventure, something to fill his dull life. He decides to commission a ship so that he and Julia can collect back taxes from a remote island. Once there he learns of a magic key on a nearby island, and upon finding the key, he and Julia wind up back on Earth. Attempting to return to Fillory become his unintended quest. On earth he and Julia team up with Brakebills' graduate Josh Hoberman and his friend Poppy. Upon returning to Fillory, they find that the entire world of magic is in danger, and that only they can save it.

Parallel to this adventure, Julia's backstory is unfolded. Being that she is a hedge witch (meaning she learned her magic on the streets instead of in a school) her path was much different than that of Quentin's (which is told in The Magicians). After failing her entrance exam to Brakebills, Julia tries to find out anything she can about magic. After years of learning everything she can from the underground world of magic, she catches the eye of an elite group of magicians who, like her, failed their entrance exams but found a way to become powerful regardless. The group teaches her everything they know, but when they decide to further their magic by summoning a god, things go askew and Julia finds herself transformed.

My Review:
I knew going into this book that I probably shouldn't read it, but I did anyway. The reason I say this is that the first book was filled with swearing, sexual references, and graphic scenes. The only reason I read this one was because I wanted to know what happened after The Magicians, the same reason I will probably read the third book when it comes out.

The story itself is very engaging. It's a mix of a really dark Harry Potter with the magical world of Narnia. Some people feel that Grossman ripped off these books, and while I understand why they believe that, there were enough differences for me to feel that this was not completely accurate. I really liked getting to see Julia's background as a hedge witch in this book. After reading The Magicians and seeing how strict Brakebills is about how to use magic, it was very interesting to see the contrast of that in the underground world of magic. Julia quickly became my favorite character in this book, as I didn't really like Quentin in the first book, I still didn't really like him much in this book. He is not who I would choose as a main character in a book. No matter what happens to him, he's never content with his life. Every time he gets exactly what he wishes for, he is unhappy about it. Seriously, you are a powerful magician living as a king, get over yourself!

As far as storyline goes, I kind of felt like the quest to save magic took backseat to Julia. I didn't find that I really cared much whether Quentin and Julia returned to Fillory or whether magic was saved, I just wanted to read about how Julia became who she is.

All in all, this book was okay. I don't know that I would recommend it to people as there is some VERY graphic parts, including a rape scene, along with a TON of swearing. This is not a book for teenagers in any way. That being said, Grossman did end the story in a way that makes me want to find out what is going to happen in the third book, so I give him props for that.

My Rating: 4/10