Re-reading for the third time; once in fourth grade, once in college, now again at 27. Still so good, after all these years. Can't believe how much happens in the first book!

I didn't realize Harmony Black was a spin off of the Daniel Faust series until the end, but fwiw I didn't feel anything was lacking.

I loved the heroine and her badass partner. The banter was sharp, the demons absolutely terrifying, and the plotting delightfully clever. The hint of romance was sweet but didn't distract from the story. I loved that it wasn't just a "secret agent fights bad guys" angle, there was history and family and self discovery too.

It's like he tried to rewrite Lord of the Flies but he'd just read Anthem and couldn't quite mesh the two trains of thought.

A fun high school story about friendship, bullying, how to deal with loss, and accidentally creating some zombies.

The story was very fun, some of the banter was pretty good, and the ending really surprised me and I loved it.

But I'm very tired of the "I only have one friend" trope, the "mean girl who learns from her mistakes and becomes a good friend" trope (because that one is never genuine), the "secretly in love with my best and only friend's brother" trope, etc etc etc.

I recommend this for anyone who needs some heartwarming, feel good happiness in these trying times. I love this book immensely.

I absolutely adored the slightly-more-than-half first part of the book. Vivian's youthful idiocy, her outrageous aunt, the brilliant and sparkling cast of characters and the play they build is so amazing.

But after the EVENT, it becomes a WWII book, and I hate WWII books. It was a lot about sacrifice and working hard and patriotism and I am just not here for it.

The ending picks back up as Vivian ages, and that part I did enjoy again. It just wasn't as magical as the first part.

Overall it's a beautiful book, and my love of Liz Gilbert is unabated.

This thing that beats in my chest --

O, it hurts.

Let's all agree to stop comparing books to Harry Potter. A) I don't want to read Harry Potter again, and I don't want to read fan fiction of it either. B) I almost missed out on this amazing book because it was called Harry Potter for adults. It's not. It's SO MUCH BETTER.

I was told before reading this book, by both people who loved and hated it, that it was dark and Quentin was awful. I would argue that Quentin is just a normal guy, and the reason people don't like him is that he's actually too realistic. (Oh, the humanity!) Quentin feels like his life is meaningless, he studies all the time, he gets drunk pretty regularly, he worries about the future, he tries to make friends. He's so painfully, wonderfully, achingly human and normal. It's actually strange to read if you're on a constant-fantasy-binge like yours truly. But it's great. Grossman isn't afraid to plumb the depths of what a real person would be like in an unreal situation.

Grossman writes, "Every ambition [Quentin had] ever had in his life had been realized the day he was admitted to Brakebills, and he was struggling to formulate a new one with any kind of practical specificity." Is there a person out there who didn't feel that way after finishing college?

My favorite thing about this book is how wickedly funny it is. After Quentin gets punched in the face by a classmate, another student comments that Quentin had it coming and in describing Q's attacker says "That guy was a mystery wrapped in an enigma and crudely stapled to a ticking fucking time bomb. He was either going to hit somebody or start a blog. To tell you the truth I'm kind of glad he hit you." And when Quentin has to interact with his oblivious parents? "Quentin's conversations with his parents were so circular and self-defeating, they sounded like experimental theater." In short, everyone at my pool thinks I'm insane because I was giggling to myself all weekend while reading this.

But the humor is also equaled by the depth of the story. You really watch Quentin grow up and realize that he's not the only person in the world. (It helps that multiple people tell him this.) But one of my favorite passages describes how a pall over the school caused by the death of a student is slowly being lifted:

Everyone was pretending to be bored to tears, or maybe they actually were, but Quentin wasn't. He was unexpectedly happy, though he instinctively kept it a secret. In fact he was so full of joy and relief he could barely breathe. Like a receding glacier the ordeal of the Beast had left behind it a changed world, jumbled and scraped and raw, but the earth was finally putting up new green shoots again. [The dean]'s idiotic [sports] plan had actually worked. The gray gloom the Beast had cast over the school was retreating. It was all right for them to be teenagers again, at least for a little longer. He felt forgiven, though he didn't even know by whom.

I loved, loved, loved this book.

I love everything about this book.

If I could only read three books over and over for the rest of my life, I would pick this trilogy.